For Such Loss, Abundant Recompense
by kalenel
Summary: And here we have a series of scenes exploring different facets of a developing relationship between FemShep and Thane. It's not love at first sight for these two, and like any two people they have to work at understanding each other.
1. Tea and Electronic Leaves

She made believe everything was fine until she got the letter. Even after Kaidan had disappointed her so much Horizon, she still thought that he had simply been acting rash. People were allowed to get upset. He reacted emotionally after seeing a supposed dead woman alive two years later, and she could understand that. It still hurt, but she wasn't angry with him. Joker had teased her about it—he had been afraid of her mood if things had gone pear shaped—but she surprised herself with the amount of peace she felt over the entire thing.

Until she got the letter.

It inspired a roller coaster of emotions. The first sentence was a relief, washing over her like a cool wave, easing tension she didn't know she had. But, as she continued...

She thought she could still understand. The letter was still a way to vent. But—and she felt selfish for thinking this—what about her? He started off the letter with an apology, an ethical appeal to get her to think he was a good guy, and then he launched into pathos.

It wasn't just that she was an excellent soldier that made her a good commander. It was her command of language, her ability to control a situation through words before it escalated into violence. Sometimes she was able to prevent it from escalating into violence. Those were the moments she was most proud of.

And as she read through Kaidan's letter, watching him use his guilt against her, using Ilos against her, doubting her, placing his future happiness on the aptitude of her future performance, but completely disregarding _her_ happiness, saying that he cared for her but not caring enough to stand by her side, or even to allow her a _voice_...

Well, she got a little angry.

It was a rare moment to witness the Normandy's commander lose control over her emotions, and as she slammed the terminal shut on the CIC deck, she knew she had more than a few pairs of eyes on her. She mentally cursed herself for reading the message out in the open, avoided Kelly's concerned gaze and headed toward the elevator. Her first thought was to go to her cabin—she could rage all she wanted in there—but she stopped herself.

No.

She would not allow this letter to get to her. Kaidan may or may not have meant his communication to burrow its way under her skin like this, but it had, and regardless of intent, she was not going to let it affect her. She certainly wasn't going to storm up to her room and pout.

She ended up on the crew deck instead, throwing together a salad for herself and angrily spearing vegetables as if each one was Kaidan's head. She supposed that what made her angriest was that his guilt trip against her worked. She felt _incredibly_ guilty. But for what? She knew she could have contacted him when she regained consciousness, and had thought about it, but she was... afraid.

It wasn't just him that was confused by the turn of events. Everything was so different now. The galaxy wasn't how she remembered it—the same in some ways, but unnaturally different in others. The people that she felt would stand by her through anything had left—barring Garrus and Joker. She was afraid Kaidan had left her too. Two years is a long time to pine after a dead woman. What if he had moved on? What if what seemed like only moments for her had stretched too long for him?

She had admittedly taken a coward's path. When the Illusive Man told her that Kaidan was on Horizon, she rationalized it away, thinking that she would just talk to him there. But it had not turned out exactly as she had planned.

His accusations had hurt because they were true. But even if they were, even if she was in the wrong, it was a two way street. He denied her the chance to explain herself, used his guilt and grief as a weapon. And so she felt safe in relishing her anger for the moment.

She felt more than heard someone approach. The scent of evergreens hit her nose, and she glanced up to see Thane, holding a cup of steaming tea. "Krios." She nodded at him. "How are you acclimating?"

She had picked him up only a week ago, and she was still getting used to his alien expressions. His eye lids flicked. "I am well, thank you. May I join you, Commander?"

She nodded at the place in front of her and impaled another cucumber. "There's plenty of room."

They sat in silence for a few moments, Shepard slowly chewing and Thane taking cautious sips of his drink. It was a comfortable silence, one that Shepard was glad to allow to continue. Thane was a man who made one comfortable with his presence without being overwhelming. She wondered if it was because he was a drell, an assassin, or just because he was him.

Jacob had made his feelings clear on the matter. He did not trust assassins. That was fine; she was not entirely sure if she trusted the drell either. Trust came slowly to her. But, Thane had proved himself in battle in the short week he had been here, and he had stayed quiet and unobtrusive. That alone made him fine in her book. Perhaps not entirely trustworthy, but still fine.

His voice startled her thoughts. "I apologize in advance if I am being too forward, Commander. But, I wonder if everything is well with you? Has something gone wrong with the mission?"

The vegetables betrayed her. "No, Krios, everything is fine with the mission. At least, as fine as things can be." She flashed him a quick smile that felt weak even to her. "It's nothing that you need to worry about."

"Ah." His dark eyes seemed to drink her in, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She felt as if he were compartmentalizing her—sectioning her off and cataloging each bit. "Well." He said softly. "I hope your situation improves."

"It's of such little importance that it doesn't matter." She lay her fork on the table and decided to change the subject. "The crew is treating you well, I assume?"

"Yes." He leaned back in his chair a bit, hands wrapped around his mug. "I still sense some discomfort, but that is to be expected. I am not here to make friends, but I believe with time the crew as a whole will come to accept me. It is hard to do otherwise in a situation where so many of your crew mates were unknowns only a few months ago. It is almost necessary."

"Mmm." She mirrored his posture, leaning back in her chair, running a hand through her short red hair. "That's a very mature attitude to have."

"Would you expect otherwise?" Thane looked at her with his eye ridges raised, and Shepard wondered what that meant.

"I merely mean that with new crew members, one can never be truly sure what to expect. I'm glad that things are going so smoothly."

A ghost of a smile graced his lips. "As am I." He brought the cup to his mouth again and took another guarded sip.

The smell of evergreens pressed in on her. "Is that your drink?" He gave her a curious look. "The smell, I mean."

"The smell?" He sat the cup down on the table and pushed it toward her. "I am not certain. Is it?"

She took the mug in both hands, bringing it to her nose and inhaling deeply. "Yes." She let out a small sigh. "It smells like a forest."

"Indeed?" He rumbled, wide eyes suddenly half closed. What were all these expressions? What did they all mean? "Forests have many smells. Describe it to me."

How to describe a scent? "Well, you can smell it yourself, right?"

"I doubt our olfactory senses are the same. Tell me, Shepard."

"It's... pine trees. Hints of cedar." Her expression became hooded, countenance shadowed in a distant memory. "That sharp smell in the morning when the mists are still on the ground. It's like everything's waking up, stretching. You can smell the moisture, the cold, and it almost burns your lungs with the intense feeling of _life_. You can taste the scent—the bitterness that makes you want to recoil and the tangible shock of _green_ that makes you want to bury yourself in a nest of boughs."

She blinked. His eyes were nearly closed, and again she felt rather than heard him—a distant murmur like hearing the sea but not seeing it. "Sorry. That probably made no sense." She pushed the mug back over to him.

His eyes opened wide. "On the contrary, Shepard, it made perfect sense." He took the mug up, cradled in both hands like a chalice, and inhaled deeply. "Thank you."

* * *

**A/N:** I haven't written anything creative in awhile. I've been too busy with school. But I had some ideas, and they wouldn't leave me. I'd like a beta, perhaps, to get me back on track. I'll need someone who's quick to catch erroneous details-I'm notorious for letting an idea running away from me and rewriting canon without even noticing. Anyone up for it?


	2. From Wild Eyes Gleams of Past Existence

Garrus stalked past her, and Shepard knew without asking that he was heading to the main battery. He wanted to be alone, and she did not fault him for it. She, instead, lingered by the mess—it was late, and the area was deserted. She knew that Garrus would ultimately move past this. It was easy to see that the turian was upset by her choice to block the shot destined for Sidonis, but she also knew what his final reaction would be. He would have regretted it. He said that they were not alike, that her decisions did not and could not match his.

But she knew about revenge.

She knew all about being surrounded by the dead and the dying, not able to save any of them. She ran when she was sixteen, fled the shrieks and the desperate cries for help, somehow managing to survive while the slavers continued merrily on with their lives. When the Alliance ships had found her she was nearly dead from exhaustion—there were so many to be buried.

And then on Akuze, the same thing happened again. This time she was able to fight back, but for what? The end result was the same. She burned the dead that time. She had learned her lesson.

So Garrus thought that she knew nothing about loss. She knew far too much for her own good. It was why she was so hesitant to take life now. There was so much death in the galaxy; did she really need to add to it? Her history had not turned her into an idealist, but it had made it so death was always the last choice. Minimize suffering. Minimize the nightmares.

Revenge didn't bring her family back. It did not bring her squad mates back. She had tracked down the slaver ship and brought them to justice, but no lives were saved. Only more were lost. The thresher maw was dead, but it brought no relief. Garrus might say that betrayal would change her outlook, but would it change the outcome? There was always only more death. What Garrus didn't seem to realize, but what she hoped he would eventually come to understand, was that it was too easy to bring more death to the galaxy. Too many people took that easy path. It was harder to preserve life, and too few chose that route.

But it wasn't that simple, and Garrus knew that. What does one do with shades of gray?

She rummaged through the cupboards in the mess for something—she knew not what—and sighed when nothing looked appetizing. She rubbed the back of her neck, fingers threading through her short hair. She needed a shower.

There was a shuffle of feet behind her, and she turned to find Thane. "Commander." He nodded politely at her.

He always seemed to be lurking about. "Hi Krios." He had been on the Citadel with her and Garrus, a silent presence in the back of their vehicle, not offering anything in the way of an opinion while her and Garrus batted the issue back and forth. She had valued his silence.

He moved past her, bringing a kettle out, filling it with water and flipping on the heat. "Could I interest you in a cup of tea?"

He looked strangely domestic, wiping his hands on a towel and gazing at her expectantly. She tried to picture him with a family, a home, a wife. She knew he had possessed all of that, at one point. Did he ache to go back to such easy domesticity? Or perhaps such bliss in the home was something that happened only in nostalgic memories and holovids.

"Yeah, thanks." She answered, and he turned back to get two cups out. "Do you cook much besides tea?"

He turned around to lean against the counter, the picture of leisure, arms folded loosely across his chest. "Irikah was the cook. It is, perhaps, stereotypical, but I have never learned to truly cook for myself. Or perhaps I just preferred it when she would make the meals. She was very good."

"My mom tried teaching me. I never had the time for it."

"You were as busy as a young girl as you are a woman?" His lips curled in amusement, and she wondered if he were trying to picture her as a child.

"Kids always think they have the luxury of time." She waved her hand dismissively. "It's only when we grow up that we realize that so many paths have been overgrown."

"Ah, too true. But you speak as if you could never learn to cook—it is still a skill you could possess."

"As could you." She grinned at him, and he blinked and hummed. Thane's voice was an enigma—she felt there was always more that she couldn't quite hear, that was just out of her range of hearing. She wondered what that hum would sound like to another drell.

The kettle began to whistle, and Thane turned to attend to it. "I have had the advantage of serving alongside you on several excursions now, Shepard. If I might say, you are not what one brings to mind when one thinks of a soldier. I thought that you would be—breaking into Nassana's office, guns blazing. But you are not."

Shepard felt she could say the same about him. "How do you mean?"

He set a cup before her and sat down across from her, leaning his elbows on the table—a common posture for him. "A soldier shoots first and asks questions later. A soldier relies on her weapon more than anything else. But you... you engage in dialogue. You offer second chances. You offer mercy."

"You can't have met too many soldiers if you think they're all like that." The tea smelled of forests.

"My apologies, I did not mean to offend." He laid his arms on the table, palms up, and Shepard wondered if that were some drell gesture of submission. "I merely intended on commending you for your reserve in judgment. I appreciate that you consider all avenues available to you before you decide on a course of action."

She smiled at him, and he relaxed, returning to his original position. "I learned early on that there are many times when you are stripped of the power of choice. Sometimes your free will is removed from you, and no matter how hard you try, nothing can stop it. Therefore, when you _do_ have the choice, when you do have the power, it is vitally important that you exercise it."

"And you believe that sometimes you remove that choice from yourself, prevent yourself from seeing it." He took a drink, eyes fluttering closed.

"Mm-hmm." She took her own guarded sip. It reminded her of fresh saplings, and she closed her eyes to savor the memory.

"And this is why you blocked Vakarian's shot."

Her eyes flew open. "Yes. And what do you think? An assassin yourself? I am sure you've experienced that vantage point many times."

She felt her tone tread on the accusatory line, but he did not seem affected by it. "Indeed I have. And sometimes we need someone to save us from ourselves." He looked at her pointedly. "It is a heavy burden you bear, Shepard. A savior."

The weight suddenly felt impossible on her shoulders. The cup was unnaturally heavy. "I don't need you to tell me that."

"I know." He said simply, taking another drink. "I wonder, do you think that you carry it alone? Do you think that you will have no one to save you?"

She didn't want to answer. She took a drink to delay the response, but his eyes were on her constantly. He was more intrusive than Kelly, more pointed than Mordin. What gave him the skill to see past the surface? Was it what made him a good assassin? What better way to kill your targets than to know them better than they knew themselves? "How does one answer that, Thane? I know that there is the answer that you want to hear, and then there's the truth. I have always been alone. I have always been the one that others depend on. I have tried my hardest to be worthy of their trust."

"You are worthy. Your crew trusts you. But, do you trust them?"

The question was unspoken—did she trust _him_? "It's hard to. When you trust people they have an uncanny knack of dying on you."

"We, all of us, are mortal. That should come as no surprise to one who deals in death. Yet, you speak your words with such weight. Why?"

She stared at her tea, the dark green reminding her of Thane's eyes, all seeing, all knowing. Shepard had enough of the questions. She felt like she was back in the psychiatrist's room, her secrets being pried out and laid in the open like obscene trophies. Every secret was a victory, another garish head to tack on the wall. There was a reason she let her crew prattle on at her—she preferred to listen, not to speak. She had nothing to speak of.

Her gaze went a little higher to stare at his hands, wrapped around his mug. How many lives had those hands taken away? As many as hers?

Shepard had been silent for too long. Thane cocked his head to one side, curious at her stillness. "Another time, perhaps." Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. "Thanks for the tea."

She shoved her chair back, and he stood with her, hand half way out as if he thought about stopping her. "Shepard, I did not mean to pry..."

"No, it's no problem. See you around, Krios." She wondered, as she rounded the corner to the elevator, if she turned around whether he would still be staring at her, his expression clearly readable by her for the first time.


	3. Glad Animal Movements

They moved through the field together as if it were choreographed. Shepard had never melded so perfectly with another soldier—not even Kaidan. Their sense of each other was almost preternatural; Thane moving to cover her, Shepard hearing the crackle of his biotics before they had even started, kneeling in front of him to deliver the final blow to a stunned enemy. It was even more pronounced when the fighting deteriorated to hand to hand—they would twist around each other like they were swimming, movements fluid and graceful, dealing death to any who opposed them.

It was magnificent.

Garrus had even asked her if she had been practicing with Thane, but she had to answer in the negative. Why did they fight so well together? Their styles, at first glance, hardly seemed suited for each other. She was not nearly as subtle and graceful as he was. He preferred silence and subterfuge, while she preferred to—once words had failed—deal with things a bit more overtly.

What made it even more strange was that they hadn't even really spoken since she had spooked in the mess hall. She hadn't felt like talking to him, and for his part he had given her the space she needed. She didn't understand why he felt the need to ask her so many questions. None of the other crew members seemed terribly interested in their Commander's sordid past—why would it matter to him? Shepard felt almost annoyed at his persistence. Did he ask so many questions of the other denizens of the Normandy? If he did, she couldn't imagine him making too many friends. Although, as she thought about her crew's chatty nature, perhaps he did.

In fact, she hoped he did, because maybe if he held revealing conversations with everyone else he would leave her alone.

The hour was late, and most of the crew were sleeping. The Normandy felt large and empty as she padded through its halls. Yet, the thought of going to bed did not appeal to her. Instead, she thought of taking her newest fiction (acquired at one of her many 'favorite stores on the Citadel') and stealing a few minutes of pleasure in the Starboard Observation room.

Thus, it was to her great disappointment that when she opened the door, Thane was already there, moving silently through some sort of _kata_. She got a brief burst of devious pleasure when he started and stumbled a bit at her entrance. Even the mighty assassin could be caught off guard.

"Commander, I... I did not expect anyone to be up this late." Thane had shed his usual skin tight clothing in favor of loose black cotton pants and a bare chest. His dark stripes were a startling contrast against his viridian skin.

"Same here." She started to turn to leave, but he took a step toward her.

"Please, we could share the room." He looked at her datapads. "I will be quiet while you read. I do not need such a large space to myself."

Shepard pursed her lips together and looked at the couch. "All right. Carry on."

He bowed slightly at her and turned to face the window again, moving silently through his exercises. Shepard folded her legs under her and flicked her datapads on, fully intending to read. But it was hard to do so when the drell moved so gracefully in a style she had never seen. She imagined it sped up and used on the battlefield. It was like water, fluid and organic, and she could see that using an opponent's joints against him seemed to be the basis of the movements. Use the enemy's momentum there, twist a shoulder here, kick at the knee and he was down, at the fighter's mercy.

She gave up on the datapad and set it aside completely. Thane's eyes were closed in concentration, light breathing and rustle of cloth the only noise in the room. Absorb the momentum, redirect it, convert the energy into your own. The stripes along his body were mesmerizing, the scales beautifully intricate, glinting and playing with the light. She felt as if the cobra were charming _her_.

"What style is this?" The words left at barely a whisper, but Thane slowed and stopped, letting his breath out in a long sigh.

His eyes were still closed when he answered her. "It is of the drell. The name... there is not a word in your language for it. It was based off of the movements of an animal from Rakhana, much like an Earth snake."

He turned to face her fully, hands clasped behind his back. "Breathing is very important. You control your breath in order to control the power of your strike." He hesitated a moment. "Would you like me to show you?"

Any doubts about Thane vanished in her eagerness to experiment with these new moves. "Yeah, sure." She bounded up, moving to stand next to him. "How do I start?"

Thane stood behind her, settling his hands on her hips. He thrust a foot between hers, and forcefully widened her stance. "Footing is essential. You must remain grounded, but able to easily shift your position as required." She inched her feet out a bit more, and his hands tightened on her hips. "Not that wide. Return to the position I directed you in."

So, he was a stern taskmaster. Shepard felt her lips quirk in amusement and obeyed him. "Okay, now what?"

One of his hands dropped, but the other settled over her stomach. She looked down at his fingers, so bright against her uniform. "Breathe. In and out. Copy my rhythm. Your strikes will fail if they do not have your breath behind them." He stepped closer to her, and she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back. By human standards he had definitely crossed the line regarding personal space, but she didn't mind. Personal space zones were necessarily eliminated while lessons were happening.

Shepard concentrated on his breathing, his exhalations tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. "Mmm, good Shepard." She could feel his voice rumble in his chest. "Now," he moved away and she immediately missed his warmth. "Copy me."

For the next hour he moved her through a basic practice, pausing her often to correct her stance and berate her for improper breathing. "Ah, Shepard," he said, as she exhaled when she should have inhaled. "I can see why you prefer guns. You are hopeless."

"Oh am I?" She said indignantly, returning to the stance he had taught her.

"Yes. Observe." He came at her suddenly, and while she blocked the first move, turning his force into what she hoped would be her own strike, he let out his breath and reversed, whipping two fingers on her solar plexus and sweeping her to the ground.

Oh, that was going to _bruise_. "What the hell, Thane?" She scowled up at him.

He was unperturbed by her glare. "Do you see? Do you see how you should have backed the force of your blow with your breath? I believe you humans call it your _chi—_it is your soul. Your life force. Nothing is more powerful." He held out his hand to her. "You performed the move admirably, but there was no power behind it."

She took his hand grudgingly, and he hauled her to her feet. "Okay, breathing, I got it." Shepard could have written a book on how his raised eye ridges displayed his disbelief. "Let's go again."

In another couple of hours, she was sweating and bruised in too many places while Thane was delightfully unaffected. "I believe that is enough for tonight, Shepard." He helped her to her feet once again. "You have improved. But if you would like to land a strike, then I believe you should practice more."

His smug little smirk was maddening. "You enjoyed this." Her finger pointed at him accusingly.

Thane shrugged, his eyes wide and innocent. "I always take pleasure in helping others learn how to defend themselves."

"Oh really?" He nodded, his smirk sneaking its way back to his lips. "Defend yourself against this." She whipped out a biotic field around his ankles, sending him flying backward to the ground with an undignified _oof_.

He crossed his arms where he lay and frowned up at her grin. "That was cheating."

"One: you deserved it you smug little bastard, and two: all's fair on the battlefield." Shepard held out her hand, wiggling her fingers when he didn't take it immediately.

"While I disagree with your first point," he took her hand finally and allowed himself to be helped up. "I must concede to your second."

Shepard laughed, and Thane smiled slowly at her. "I'll take what I can get." She gathered her datapads. "Thanks for the workout, Thane. I'll sleep well tonight."

He inclined his head slightly. "It was my pleasure, Commander."


	4. Thy Memory Be As a Dwelling Place

Grunt had no idea how close she came to losing it. She knew what was coming the moment she felt the ground rumble—she could feel the all too familiar sick dread build up in her stomach, making her feel almost desperate enough to cast her weapon to the ground and just... _run_.

But as the thresher maw reared out of the rocky soil, its unnatural shriek splitting the sky, she stood her ground. Shepard had lost so many mates on Akuze; she would die before she let Grunt and Thane face this monster's mercy alone. Instinct had taken over—she darted from cover to cover, shouting orders to her two soldiers, shouldering her grenade launcher every time there was a brief opportunity to whittle down a little more of the maw's thick armor.

When the creature writhed its last on the barren landscape, she felt the panic looming on the horizon. Grunt was saying something—expressing happiness, she thought—but all she could do was grip her gun so hard she felt her knuckles would pop. Focus on the pain; narrow everything to the sting of her flesh on the hot metal; keep the panic at bay. Distantly, she heard Thane murmur something to her before that damn krogan, Uvenk, brought an all too welcome distraction.

The battle calmed her, grounded her, and when Uvenk was, in Grunt's words, 'meat' left for the varren, she felt that the panic had completely receded. She grinned at her young protégé, both of them smeared with the blood earned from his rite, and felt as absurdly proud as if she were seeing her own child achieve such status within Urdnot. Grunt chattered about their battle like he had come back from his first day at school, and Shepard would often sneak sidelong glances at Thane, who couldn't seem to keep the small smile from teasing his lips.

Grunt had a lot to say about his experience, apparently, for even when they were in the shuttle, he couldn't stop talking about it. "It was amazing battlemaster—the way we showed Uvenk exactly where he could shove it," a low growl rumbled through his body. "I wish I had your memory, drell, so I could perfectly recall the look on his face before I destroyed him."

Thane cocked his head to one side. "You should have taken a holo. It would last longer."

Grunt clenched his hands into fists and pounded the armrests. "I know! That would have been perfect!"

Shepard laughed and shook her head. "Going to be a battlefield photographer, Grunt?"

"Only of my kills—and maybe some of yours if they're really impressive," he conceded, the krogan equivalent of being polite. "I could make a whole wall of them."

And then the conversation steered toward what sort of recording device he should get, badgering Thane for advice, who kept protesting that he had no clue—why would _he_ need one?

After they docked with the Normandy, Shepard tried peeling herself away from the excited youngster, but with the tenacity of a sheepdog, Grunt followed her to the mess hall, desperate to share with her all of the Kodak moments he would have captured during his rite. Shepard tried, passive aggressively, to dissuade Grunt by grabbing a handful of crisps from a communal bowl in the center of the table and cramming them in her mouth. See? She was busy chewing. Couldn't talk, ever so sorry. Thane hovered on the edge of the scene—at least he wouldn't leave her alone with Grunt, even though she wished he would do something to detach her other than hover on the periphery of her vision, a veritable Cheshire cat with that smirk on his face.

"And of course Shepard the most important holo would have been a picture of you and that thresher maw." He beamed proudly at her. "You delivered the final blow. I've never seen anyone more savage than you during that fight. You fought like a krogan in a bloodlust."

Shepard felt like Grunt had smacked her across the face. With a sudden rush, the fear pounced on her, and she stifled a gasp. She could almost feel the blood drain from her face, and she knew that she looked even paler than usual. Grunt eyed her curiously, and she thought she heard him ask her a question, but there was no use responding. She had to get out of the mess. _Had_ to.

When she thought about it afterward, she had some pale memory of blurting out that she had to go to the bathroom, and then she was stumbling down the hall, fleeing past Thane and nearly bowling over Garrus as she rounded the corner. "Shepard?" His voice sounded distant and small over the oppressive rush in her ears. She felt him exchange a worried glance with someone behind her—probably Thane—before she burst into the blessedly empty bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before losing the entire contents of her stomach.

She hadn't had a panic attack like this for years. _Years_. But here it was again: her heart beat far too quickly for her body to handle it, and she felt like her entire body was one throbbing blood vessel—moving too quickly, pumping blood too quickly. Her head felt too light; her body felt too light—tingly—and she had the absurd feeling of watching her pathetic display from somewhere slightly above herself. Shepard felt the heaves wrack her body, the strangled sobs barely held back, but it was so distant that she could almost pretend it wasn't her.

Trembling, she tried—and failed—to rein herself in. She could barely hold her head above the toilet, much less pretend that everything was all right. She kept seeing their faces, eaten by acid, flesh smoking, the _smell_.

She heaved again when she heard the door slide open. _Fuck_.

The intruder silently handed her a damp washcloth, and she took it without looking behind her, assuming it was Kelly, or perhaps Miranda, until she saw the green hand.

The sharp sting of embarrassment at the assassin seeing her like this, at her very worst, brought back a tiny bit of control. "Ladies only, Thane." She said thickly. "Pervert."

She began wiping her mouth, when Thane's silent fingers suddenly threaded through her hair, pulling back her short tresses to clip them out of her face. The gesture, simple though it was, made her chest seize up with sorrow and, yes, pity for herself. A giant pity party for the Commander.

Shepard finished wiping off her face, folding the washcloth up so she could press an unsoiled surface against her too hot forehead. Thane slid down the wall beside her and crossed his long legs at his ankles, focusing his gaze on his lap where his hands lay loosely folded. She stared at him with eyes that felt raw and large, and wondered where he had gotten the hair clip.

They sat in silence for several moments, punctuated by random sniffs from her. She still couldn't stop the fine shudders that went through her body, making her shake like she was freezing, even though she felt way too warm. The nightmares that she had assumed were far behind her danced in her mind—blood on the sand, shrieks of pain, steaming entrails glistening in the sun. She felt unclean, soiled, sticky with sweat and fear. In a strange way, her body felt foreign to her, as though if she could just peel back her skin, shed it like a snake, she could finally start fresh.

Thane studied his hands like they were the most fascinating things in the universe, and Shepard had to throttle down a bark of hysterical laughter. "So." She said finally, hating how her voice sounded thick with tears. "I guess you're wondering why your Commander is acting like a giant baby."

He looked up at her for the first time, and he looked strangely sad. "I am curious, but you do not have to talk about it if you do not wish to."

They fell silent again as Shepard mulled over what he said. This—this crying mess—was not who she was supposed to be. She was the Commander of the Normandy, defender of the galaxy, enemy of the Reapers... to let someone under her command, to let _anyone_ see her like this meant that... that they might begin to doubt her as much as she doubted herself.

But he, unlike so many others, demanded nothing from her. Shepard looked at Thane, valuing his comfortable silence, she found that she didn't mind if he knew. It wasn't just that his face seemed open, kind—at least from what she could tell—but it also seemed mild and nonjudgmental. She did not feel as if he were silently condemning her, cataloging all the things he felt she had failed at. Since when had Thane become this person in her life? Someone she could break down in front of and not feel like she had to kill him to eliminate all witnesses? It was almost a relief—as if sharing her secret with him had lessened her burden. Now it wasn't just hers to carry anymore.

"I keep seeing their faces." She whispered, a traitorous tear rolling down her cheek. "I had only been in the Alliance for a few years. I was still so fresh, young." She paused, taking a shuddering breath. "Our intelligence was faulty—no one to blame, these things just happen. But it sent us into the path of a thresher maw. We were slaughtered." She folded her arms across her chest, crushing her hands under her armpits in a futile attempt to stop them from shaking. "I thought I had put it behind me. But today, when we were fighting... It was like Akuze all over again. I was so... so afraid, not just for myself but for you and Grunt. I didn't want to lose you." She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. "I thought this was behind me. I had it under control for so long, but sometimes I have trouble stopping the memories. It's a weakness, and I hate it."

She heard Thane shift over to her. His voice was close, hovering above her head. "I know this pain, Shepard. The simplest things in life can trigger the most terrible memories. The fluttering edge of a cloth will remind me of the way Irikah's robe moved in the wind as she lay covered in her own blood on the floor; the keening cry of a bird will bring to mind the sharp sound of mourning my son made as they lowered her into the sea. What you faced today was not simple."

"But it should have been." She looked up at him; his sad humming echoed off of the tiles, and she wondered what sort of memories played behind dark eyes. "And now you get to see your Commander fall apart like this." She smiled bitterly, more of a baring of teeth than anything. "It must shake your confidence. If a battle with a thresher maw weakens me like this, what will happen when I face the Reapers?"

It was a question that she didn't know she wanted an answer to until it left her lips. She looked at him expectantly, and he gave her a cautious smile. "What will happen? The same thing that happened when you faced Sovereign—you will triumph. You fear losing our support, but I will always have faith in your ability."

Her eyes welled with tears and she looked away, hastily running the back of her hand over her eyes. Thane had now seen the worst she had to offer, and he was willing to stick around. Such blind faith in her ability, even after everything he had seen, was touching, comforting. Her trembling slowly subsided, and she struggled to her feet.

Thane stood with her; he was closer than she normally would have liked, but right now it was soothing. If she didn't feel that her behavior had already crossed the line regarding a professional relationship, she would have felt perfectly at ease getting a hug from him. Hugs were high on her list of priorities right now.

"Shepard," Thane's voice was soft, gentle. "The passage of time never truly heals these wounds, but we carry on because we have to, because those we lost to the sea would want us to, and because there is still light left in the galaxy."

His advice was simple, matter of fact, but it made her want to sob with relief, for it was an answer that finally made sense to her eternal unspoken question: would this pain ever stop? He was right—there would be no ultimate relief for the pain she felt, but it served a purpose—a constant reminder of her cause, an invisible banner that she would always fly. Knowing that this pain was a part of her—defined her—helped her start to accept it as an asset, not something that she had to bury and avoid. We carry on. They would keep fighting, even though it hurt, because they fought not just for the people around them, but for the people who they had to leave behind.

Thane palmed the door open, and Shepard stepped out, blinking, in the bright light of the hall. Garrus gave her a sharp, concerned look, but she stood straight, giving him a watery smile before she headed for the elevator.

We carry on.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone who's read my story thus far. I've had this chapter written for some time, but I've never been quite happy with it. I'm not sure why. After agonizing over it for a a few days, I decided to just go ahead and post it. If you can figure out what makes it crappy, please let me know. Perhaps I could revise it in the future.


	5. Feelings of Unremembered Pleasure

The worst part about being the commander was the paperwork.

There were always mountains of it—requisitions, work orders, personnel, status checks—and she had to do it all. Kelly helped out as much as she could, but most of it needed Shepard's personal attention. A yeoman's recommendations could only go so far.

And Shepard was a procrastinator. She was deadly efficient on the battlefield, but even as she saw the datapads stack themselves up on her desk, she couldn't bring herself to do much about them. It was only after Kelly started putting them under her pillow, in her medicine cabinet, and in her underwear drawer that she decided to do something about it.

So, she sat down at her desk with every intention of finishing them all—every single one—but the chime on her computer kept sounding, saying she had a new message, and then there was an article on the news nets that caught her eye, and then the hamster needed some attention, and those damn fish needed to be fed, and while she was at it, she supposed she could tidy up a bit, and…

The paperwork was never going to be done as long as she stayed in her room.

So, she gathered all of the datapads up, balancing them precariously in her arms, and made her way to the mess hall. It was empty—thankfully—and she spread them out before her, grateful to have the entire table to herself.

She had only gone through half a dozen before her head started to hurt. She felt dangerously close to whining about the situation and felt incredibly sorry for herself. Indulging in self pity was rare for her, but it almost seemed appropriate now. If only she had stayed on top of things, if only she had never had to command a damn ship in the first place, if only, if only…

A cup of tea was set down before her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, letting loose an embarrassing squeak of surprise. Twisting around revealed Thane standing behind her, holding his own cup. "I did not mean to startle you, Commander."

"Is that so?" His words said one thing, but the amusement shining in his dark eyes suggested another. She was slowly warming up to the thought that Thane wasn't that bad after all. In fact, much to her surprise, the drell was steadily growing on her, and pretty soon she found herself seeking him out for nearly every assignment, even if it was only for advice. His dependability, efficiency and—she had to admit—his gentle conversation were quickly becoming staples in her life. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding between them now, especially after her display in the washroom. She knew that she hadn't quite trusted the drell when he first came aboard, but—against her will, at times—she had to concede that she did trust him now.

And, if she were being entirely honest with herself, Shepard just felt more at ease around Thane—her smiles came quicker, laughter usually followed, and she found herself inordinately pleased when he would echo her. "What are you always doing up so late?" Her eyes followed him as he moved to the seat across from her.

"I require little sleep." Thane settled himself down across from her. "I would ask you the same question, but the answer appears obvious."

She grimaced and looked at all the datapads strewn across the table. "Yeah."

He pulled one over to himself with a finger while raising his cup to his lips to delicately blow on the tea. Shepard watched him as he scanned over the contents. "This is... really boring."

His bluntness caught her off guard, and she laughed. "You're telling me. I've been sitting on these things for weeks, and they just keep coming."

"Why not just complete them as they arrive?"

She wondered if something like _duh_ would translate and decided against it. "You may not know this about me, Krios, but I am a closet procrastinator."

"I would have never guessed." His face was a blank mask; sarcasm never translated well across species, and she couldn't tell if he was joking with her or not.

But when she smiled cautiously at him, his quick smile back at her revealed his intent. At least smiles were intelligible across their two species. "So, you know what I do in the middle of the night, but you haven't told me what you do."

"My nights are usually spent in meditation or exercise—as you saw in the Starboard Observation room several weeks ago. However, if I know that you are awake, I will seek you out." He took a sip.

She blinked at his last sentence. "Me? Why me?"

Thane smiled mysteriously. "Why not?" When she raised a skeptical eyebrow, he continued. "The rest of the crew is not nearly as interesting as you are. And, you are usually too busy to engage in conversation during the day."

So she was interesting? "What's so interesting about me?" The datapads lay scattered before her, forgotten.

"Many things." He neatly evaded her question in order to serve one back at her. "Do you not have quite a bit of work to accomplish?" Thane looked pointedly at the datapads.

She waved a dismissive hand. "In a moment. You can't say something like that and expect me not to bite. Answer the question, Krios."

He blinked and hummed at her. "I..." It appeared that she had stumped the assassin, and she wondered if the slight darkening of the ridges on his throat was the way that drell blushed. His gaze, usually inescapable, fled from her inquiring eyes and studied the cup nestled between his hands. He traced the lip of his cup with one finger—normal for anyone else, but such movement for Thane was tantamount to excessive fidgeting. "I have never met someone like you, Shepard. Everything about you is... interesting."

Shepard swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She took a hurried sip of her tea to mask her discomfort, but discomfort from what, she wasn't entirely sure. "Anyway, it's not fair that you ask me all the questions. You have me at a disadvantage."

Thane visibly relaxed, apparently thankful for the lifeline she threw him, for he let the topic drop and moved on. "You have asked questions. You know about my spiritual views, about my people's relationship with the Hanar, about my illness, about my wife… What else would you know?"

She studied him for a moment. Thane's dark eyes were open and interested, hands wrapped loosely around his mug. "What would you tell me?"

"Anything."

The word was so small, simple, but it made her chest clench in a way that was not entirely unpleasant. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Perhaps it was just an expression and not what he really meant, yet his gaze never wavered from her, anticipating her response.

The question tumbled out of her mouth before she even knew she wanted to ask it. Thane had that effect on her—she was so taciturn until he somehow unlocked her carefully hoarded language, spilling her words across the table. "Why did you follow me into the washroom when I was... you know." The episode weighed heavily on her mind—in that short time, her perception of Thane had changed. He was someone different now, and she still wasn't sure who. All she knew was that, to her, he was no longer just a soldier under her command.

Thane blinked slowly at her, leaning forward slightly in his chair. She had to stop herself from leaning forward as well. "You needed someone. I thought I could help. I wanted to help."

There was something about the intensity of his gaze that made her blush and look away. "Well. Thanks. I mean it." She hazarded a glance back at him, and couldn't help returning the small smile that played with his lips.

"You are quite welcome, Shepard." His voice was deep, deeper than usual. Once again she found herself wondering what that meant.

A silence stretched between them, and after a few seconds—which felt like a few centuries—she straightened up, clearing her throat, eager to focus on something that was infinitely simpler. "Anyway, how good are you at filling out paperwork?"

His eyelids flicked, and he smiled at her. "I am a fast learner."

And indeed he was. They spent the next few hours bent over datapads, Thane murmuring questions to her now and then, and before she knew it, they were done. She stretched in her chair, yawning. "I cannot believe that we're finished!"

Thane rubbed the back of his neck and let out a small hiss. "Please do not let your work pile up like this again, Shepard."

"I make no promises." She began stacking the datapads together.

Thane's reply was cut off by his bioluminescent omnitool beeping at him. For a moment, she watched him read whatever invisible message he had received before deciding to leave. However, just as she was about to say goodbye, the drell's entire body tensed, and Shepard could feel—on the edge of her hearing—a low thrum of unhappiness.

She immediately turned back to him, setting the datapads down on the table and hovering over his shoulder. "Thane? What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's…" He stood in one swift movement, forcing her to take a step back to avoid being nearly pressed up against him. "Kolyat, my son." Thane closed his eyes for a moment; Shepard waited patiently for him to continue. "I believe I must ask for your assistance…"

* * *

**A/N:** Yeah, so a cliffhanger that isn't really a cliffhanger, since we all know what happens. :D


	6. How Oft Have I Turned to Thee

Shepard thought back on their rescue of Thane's son, still marveling at how lucky they were that everything worked itself out. She had helped her crew before—saving Miranda's sister, helping Jacob confront his father, working with Jack to erase the ghosts of her past—but none seemed to have the impact on her that Kolyat had.

He was a boy on the cusp of adulthood, that fragile liminal state, where identity was fluid and pain was amplified by the raw need to prove oneself. She knew that feeling—she had combated it by signing up for the Alliance in order to take the fight to the slavers that had destroyed her home and family. But Kolyat... he had chosen a different path.

Closing her eyes as she rode the elevator down to the crew deck, she remembered when she saw the tall, skinny drell with Thane's unmistakable eyes pelt down the hall toward the turian, the name ripping through her throat without a second thought.

"Kolyat!"

Taking advantage of his split second hesitation, she vaulted over the railing of the catwalk, trying to close the distance between the two of them, when the kid shot a panicked look at her and spun back around, firing haphazardly at the two krogan guards and miraculously taking down the both of them. Perhaps he had inherited some of Thane's talent.

She felt Thane beside her—and together they burst into the room where Kolyat held Talid hostage. Shepard trained her gun on Thane's son automatically, and she hated herself for it. He was only a kid, a child, Thane's boy...

And he also had a gun and looked quite ready to shoot it.

So Shepard aimed her weapon at Kolyat, forcefully distancing herself from the situation, hoping that if the worst happened, all she would need to do was wound him.

"Kolyat." Thane's voice had more weight to it than she had ever heard. It was the voice of a father.

"So this is what it takes to make you decide to waltz back into my life?" Kolyat snarled, his grip on the gun tightening.

Talid began to beg for his life, cutting off any response Thane had. Kolyat's eyes widened at the turian's words, his arm faltering ever so slightly. Shepard could see the horror at the entire situation written plainly on the younger drell's face—he was so much easier to read than his father.

Taking a small step forward, Shepard hoped to capitalize off of Kolyat's hesitation, when Bailey and a few officers burst in, making her curse under her breath. Kolyat shook off his momentary doubt and steeled his gaze. "You can't stop me." He said haughtily, the sure arrogance of any teenager coloring his voice. "The turian and I are walking out together."

"There will be snipers outside." Thane's voice quietly cut in, and Shepard inwardly cringed. Cool logic was not going to work here.

The inevitable outcome unfolded in Shepard's mind. She couldn't shoot him—just couldn't—not with Thane there, not when she'd have to see shock and horror chase themselves across his face at what she'd done. And he was just a boy—too young for this, too young to pay for his mistake with his life. Bailey would not experience the same crisis of conscience, and when Kolyat stubbornly insisted on carrying through with this ill-fated plan, the captain would shoot him—perhaps even kill him. And Thane...

Well, all she knew was that it someone shot her kid, the entire Reaper race wouldn't be able to stop her from exacting bloody vengeance.

Seconds ticked by slowly in her head, and as Kolyat began serving a hot volley of cheek to his father, Shepard's vision narrowed, her mind furiously working at every possible solution. Wound Kolyat. Shoot the turian. Shoot Bailey. Slam a biotic field into Kolyat. Disarm Kolyat.

Disarm Kolyat.

She fired her weapon past the drell, hitting a lamp behind him, and making the poor kid jump out of his skin. Before he could barely let out a yelp, she had stepped forward, slamming her elbow across his face and wrenching the gun out of his hand, kicking it backwards toward Thane.

Kolyat's face was a mixture of astonishment and humiliation, and if she weren't so scared that things would still go horribly wrong (What if he had a second weapon? Should she search him further? Tackle him to the ground?), she would have been unable to stop the laugh from climbing out of her.

And once the danger had passed (she remembered slapping Thane's impending death across Kolyat's face like a gauntlet, relishing the momentary sorrow that flashed across the young drell's face, even as her own chest tightened painfully), Thane finally stepped forward, finally willing to begin revealing a fraction of the emotion she knew must be boiling underneath that cool exterior, finally giving his son the reaction she knew Kolyat wanted.

She wondered how much of his father Kolyat really carried within him. Thane was like the windless sea, calm, level, mirror like in his stillness. Kolyat, on the other hand, was the sea in the middle of a hurricane. Had Thane once carried such impetuousness? Such reckless emotion? She watched the two of them face each other in the turian's apartment, Kolyat standing a few inches above his father. The disappointment and anger in the younger drell's voice seemed to make Thane appear even smaller. He had trouble meeting his son's eyes, shrinking back in his shame.

It was not a side to the assassin that Shepard had thought she would witness. Thane was untouchable—it was not merely that he had defenses; rather, he was encased within an impenetrable fortress. It was almost fascinating to see the drell visibly shaken by his son. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, casting his eyes to the ground, the walls, anywhere but his son. His sentences were short, clipped, and she felt his unhappiness and regret radiating off of him in waves.

Her heart ached for the both of them—Kolyat with his false bravado, wrapping his anger around himself like security blanket, and Thane with his sad eyes and hesitant voice, so unsure and vulnerable. The red and blue of police lights lit up both of their faces—a connection in crime rather than family.

"They... They killed your mother to get at me." Thane's tone held a confessional note, and she realized that this was the first time he had ever told Kolyat why he had left.

Kolyat's face seemed to crumple. "What?" She imagined what he must have thought all these years—a burglary gone wrong, his mother in the wrong place at the wrong time, his father off killing for other people, but not there to kill for them, to protect them from a senseless act of violence. Suddenly what had seemed like mere chance took on terrifying meaning.

"I hunted them. Hurt them. Eventually I killed them." Grim satisfaction and sorrow flitted across Kolyat's face at his father's words.

"And when I came back to you," Thane continued. "...You were older. Your aunt had raised you well. You seemed happy. It seemed unfair to introduce pain into your life again." He chanced a look at his son, but dropped his eyes again.

Kolyat gave his father a look that suggested Thane was perhaps one of the densest minds in the galaxy. "Well, I guess it's lucky for me that you waited so long, huh?" He wielded sarcasm like a surgical blade, knowing exactly where to strike his father in order to hurt him the most, despite it being years since they last saw each other. Kolyat's desperation to make his father feel the pain he had experienced over such a long time laced every word, every inflection, every gesture. And she looked at Thane, hoping that he would finally let something... anything... through.

Thane's eyes grew impossibly wide, and she had the sense that he was holding back tears. "Kolyat, I have removed many bad things from the world. You're the only good thing I put in it."

Kolyat could not hold back his, and Shepard watched as Thane moved closer, murmuring words just beyond the edge of her hearing, touching his son's shoulder with a tender affection that made her feel as if she might add a few tears to the mix herself.

She was silent during the ride to the station, silent during the ride to the Normandy. Thane let it stretch between them, and she did not mind. It was a comfortable silence—Shepard could feel Thane thinking through what had happened, and she understood the importance of being alone in one's thoughts. With any other crew member, she may have felt awkward, even slighted, but if she and the drell understood anything about each other, it was the value of being quiet and still.

When they had arrived on the ship, Thane immediately excused himself from her, and she murmured her assent, catching his eyes and offering a tiny, reassuring smile. He hesitated a moment, alien features harboring unknown emotions, and finally returned her smile—uncertain though it was—and slipped off to his quarters.

And now, it had been almost two days since they had spoken—Thane had kept almost exclusively to his room—and Shepard began to worry about him. What if she had misread him? What if he were hurting and wanted her to speak to him, reassure him, and she had failed? What if she had imposed her own understanding of grief onto the drell—seclusion, private ruminations—and that was not what he needed at all?

It made her feel guilty—he had helped her so much, but she offered little in return. Thus, she got off the elevator at the crew deck and stood in front of the entrance to his quarters. Her hand hovered over the center of the door, uncertain now that she had actually arrived. What would she say? She knew nothing of children—and the way she was going, she was likely to never have any in order to understand the unique pain a parent feels. But, regardless of her own insecurities, she had to go in. Even if her awkward attempts at cheering Thane up were ultimately useless, she hoped to at least tease a smile out of him, however small.

She palmed open the door, starting to take a quick step inside, but Thane was already there, taking his own step out, and what she thought only happened in holovids made her blush furiously—they collided in a tangle of limbs and startled gasps, Thane wrapping one arm around her middle to keep her from falling, Shepard steadying herself by gripping his upper arms. She was acutely aware of his body pressed against her—it forcefully reminded her of their sparring in Starboard Observation, but this was not the same... not even close. Leather from some unknown creature sighed under her hands, and his scent—something like cloves and cedar—tickled her nose, making her want to bury her face in his neck and breathe him in until there was no more air. And that, of course, served only to intensify her blushes.

He took a step back from her, neck ridges a dark ruby, and she really hoped that meant he was as embarrassed as her. "I... um. Shepard. Hello." He clasped his hands behind his back.

"Hey. How's it... uh... going?" Her face could stop being beet red any time now. Really.

He moved to clasp his hands in front of him. "I am well. And you?"

"Good, good. Things are good."

They stared at each other for a moment, Thane crossing his arms in front of his chest, shifting his weight to the other foot. She didn't think she remembered him moving so much in such a short amount of time.

"Sorry about running-"

"I apologize for-"

They both stopped in unison, and she couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled out of her. The slow grin that spread across his face made her feel unreasonably happy. "So, Thane, I miss our chats over tea. Join me in the mess hall?"

Something suspiciously like a purr teased her ears, and she desperately wanted to know how it really sounded. "You have anticipated my desire, Shepard. I would love to join you."

Her tea had never tasted quite so good.

* * *

**A/N:** It occurred to me that I have neglected to give credit where credit is due: all of my titles, barring the first (which is from my own little head), are taken from Wordsworth's poem "Tintern Abbey". It is a beautiful poem, and I really recommend reading it. Oh, and Bioware owns everything, blah blah blah.


	7. Aching Joys and Dizzy Raptures

A night of innocent conversation evolved when they graduated from cups of tea to shots of whiskey.

After Thane had followed her to the mess hall, he began speaking immediately of the relief he felt at his son's safety, knowing that the Citadel was probably one of the safest places for him to be right now since there was no longer any imminent danger of Reapers pouring through. It was endearing—the pride in Thane's voice was as plain as the small smile on his face when he spoke of his hope that his son would eventually become a C-Sec officer.

"He would work to stop people like me." He said, taking a sip of his tea. "It is as it should be."

"Like you?" She eyed him curiously. "I thought you felt no regret for what you did."

"Regret, no." A thoughtful hum vibrated from his throat. "But for every instance of darkness, there must also be light. I would rather Kolyat be part of the latter."

Shepard smiled, standing up. Thane's eyes latched onto her, and she heard his question as clearly as if he had spoken it. "I feel like we should be celebrating. And tea isn't what you celebrate with." She answered, retrieving a bottle from the cupboard. "Ever had whiskey, Thane?"

"Whiskey." He sounded it out, mouth working around the strange word. "No, I have not."

"Well," she said as she poured two shots and scooted one over to him. "There's a first time for everything." She sat down across from him and held up her tiny glass. "To Kolyat, and his future career as one of the good guys."

Thane held up his shot, regarding the amber liquid for a moment. "To Kolyat."

The assassin's face as he downed the shot—sputtering out "It... it tastes like _burning_"—was absolutely priceless.

Shepard's victorious laugh sounded off the metal hull. "Have another one?" She took the glass from his hand and poured a second shot.

"It seems as if I do not have a choice." He coughed, giving the newly filled glass a look of trepidation. "You humans drink this _recreationally_?"

"All the time." Shepard smirked. "What's wrong, Krios? You don't like it?"

Thane seemed to gather his courage, taking a deep breath before throwing back the shot, one hand gripping the edge of the table. "Ugh, no." He coughed again. "It is terrible."

Shepard quickly tossed back her second. "And I suppose drell liquor tastes like ambrosia?"

Thane cocked his head for a moment while his translator searched for the last word. "No." He finally said. "Of course not. But, what I prefer to drink tastes infinitely better than this... whiskey."

"Not going to believe you until you prove it." Shepard said smugly, leaning back in her chair.

Thane raised his eye ridges at her. "A challenge? And what would you do if I responded to it?" A slow grin took over her face, and he continued. "Come to my quarters, Commander. I have a bottle of _tekana_, which you are welcome to try if you feel... up to it."

Shepard shoved her chair back and stood up, defiant as always. "Take your whiskey, Commander." Thane smiled smugly at her as he stood as well, waving a languid hand toward the bottle. "In the likely event of you not being able to handle the potency of my chosen drink, you will have yours to fall back on."

Thane as the trash talking drell was not something that Shepard thought she would see. Their relationship just kept getting weirder. A small part of her was surprised at how they had evolved—from distrust and mild dislike to open banter and easy conversation, but for the most part she was simply thrilled at how deftly he used that sharp tongue of his to match her own. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, Krios."

A smirk was her only response as he grabbed the glasses in one hand, moving past her to lead the way to his quarters. Once the door had closed behind them, he sat the glasses on the table and, turning around, bent down to pull a chest out from under his cot. Shepard peered over his shoulder as he opened it—what sort of stuff would a drell carry?—and was disappointed to see only a slew of datapads, miscellaneous gun components, what looked like an extra jacket and pair of trousers, and another smaller box. "What's in that one?" She blurted out—whiskey always made her chatter like a teenage girl.

"The box?" Thane looked over his shoulder to catch her eye before grabbing a slender blue bottle out from underneath a mess of datapads. "Little things. Mostly Irikah's. She saved an assortment of items from our marriage day—she said she wanted to pass them on to a daughter." He closed the chest, sliding it back under the cot. "I never had the heart to throw them out."

Shepard worried at her bottom lip, not quite sure what to say, but Thane stood, waving the bottle back and forth in front of her. "Have you prepared yourself?"

She flashed him an insolent smile. "Do your worst."

When he handed her the shot—the palest sky blue—she gave it a cautionary sniff. He raised an eyebrow ridge at her and lifted his own glass. "And what shall we drink to this time, Shepard?"

She pursed her lips together. "To trying new things." She grinned. "Always pushing for that new horizon."

"Indeed." Thane watched her over the edge of his glass as she drained hers, amply rewarded when Shepard hacked and wheezed just as much as he did. "Is something wrong?" He gave her a couple of smart smacks on her back. "Is it too much for you?"

Shepard scowled up at him. "This tastes like battery acid."

"I would not know what that tastes like. Frankly, I find it surprising that you do, although with your human cuisine, I suppose I should not be." He emptied his glass, letting out an appreciatory sigh.

The whiskey and _tekana_ made her head buzz a bit, but for the most part she just felt deliciously warm. "You are far more of a sarcastic jackass than you let on, Thane."

He flashed her a grin and took the glass from her hand, pouring her another blue shot. "There is a lot about me that you do not know, Shepard. Now drink this. It makes us... even."

She made a face when he handed the glass back to her. "You didn't have to drink that second shot."

"And neither do you. But you will." His smug certainty was almost enough to make her not drink it to spite him. Almost.

"Fine." She threw it back, trying to get as much as she could straight down her throat and past her taste buds. It didn't really work.

The fourth shot made her fingertips feel a bit tingly. Thane looked quite comfortable himself after he finished his, leaning back on his table and crossing his legs at his ankles like it was the most natural thing in the world to be throwing back shots with Commander Shepard. "Tell me something, Shepard. Do you do this with everyone under your command?" He filled his glass with more _tekana_ and snatched hers to fill it with whiskey.

She accepted the newly filled glass with no small amount of apprehension. Thank god the elevator was right outside of his room. She wouldn't have too far to teeter in order to make it back to her quarters. "This? You mean drink? No, not really." She drank the shot slowly.

"I know that. The drinking, I mean." He drained his glass quickly and gave the bottom a forlorn look as if he had hoped to find something at the end of his drink. "What I meant was... this." He waved his hands around, as if that was supposed to convey something. "The talking. The conversation." She couldn't stop smiling at the thought of Thane getting a little tongue tied. It pleased her to no end to see someone as collected as Thane lose a tiny bit of that control.

In addition to making her inordinately chatty, whiskey also made her a smartass. "Do I _talk_ to other people? Have _conversations_? Well, yeah, of course." She leaned next to him on the table. The ship was a little wobbly.

He let out a frustrated rumble. "You know what I mean. You are being deliberately obtuse."

She elbowed him in the side. "Okay, fine. Your conversation is the best. The most illuminating. I am satisfied with no one else. You've ruined me forever."

"And _I _am sarcastic?" He threw up his hands. "You are impossible."

Shepard tried to stifle the snicker that threatened to escape her, but it eventually burst out into a full blown laugh. "Sorry Thane, someone has to crush that ego of yours."

"Ego?" He pushed himself away from the table, standing in front of her with his arms loosely crossed. "There is nothing wrong with that if it is deserved. What is it that your human author wrote? 'Pride – where there is a real superiority of mind – will always be under good regulation'?"

"Yeah, you're no Mr. Darcy, sorry. Except perhaps on the smug jackass front."

Thane's face went blank for a moment, and Shepard thought that she had truly offended him, which actually made her a bit disappointed in him, since the situation was so very ridiculous. But his eyes suddenly focused sharply on her, and she realized that he had been lost in a memory. "And you are no Elizabeth Bennet—except perhaps with your false sense of superiority and your complete failure to notice..." His voice trailed off.

Shepard narrowed her eyes at him. "Notice what?"

"Ah... nothing." His eyes left her face for once and wavered around the room, searching for something else to land on and finding nothing. He settled for a point just over her head.

"You always try to weasel your way out of verbal traps, Krios. Just come out with it!" She shoved herself away from the table, but her stationary position had allowed her to underestimate the effect of three shots of whiskey and two shots of... whatever that was. Her feet tripped on invisible cracks and she found herself tumbling against Thane, who, for his part, tried valiantly to catch her. But in the end it was useless, and the force of her momentum caused both of them to tumble back on Thane's cot.

The poor assassin smacked the back of his head on the bulkhead behind him, making him let out a strangled yelp and a string of quick drell curses that her translator completely failed to convert.

"Oh my god, Thane, are you okay?" Her hands fluttered over his head before it slowly began dawning on her that not only was this the second time in one night that she was pressed against the assassin, she was straddling him. On his cot. And they were both, if not drunk, completely buzzed.

She began leaning back to get off of him, but he must have thought she was falling again because his hands shot out to grip her waist. "Careful, Shepard. I am fine... I've... had worse injuries."

Her gaze fell to his hands, and she could feel his eyes settle there too. The hum of the engines sounded in her head like an impossible roar as he spread his fingers wide, splaying them across her hips. "Thank you." He murmured so low that she almost thought she imagined it.

"Thank you?" She echoed dumbly. "What for?"

"For what you've done for me. For Kolyat." She glanced shyly at him and was startled to see his eyes shining with an emotion she couldn't quite identify.

"It was nothing."

"Perhaps to you, although I would hope not. To me, it means... a great deal."

Silence dominated the next few moments. His hands seemed glued to her hips, and she didn't know if she wanted them to stay there or go away. Touching happened often on the battlefield: a rough congratulatory slap on the back, a rude shove to the ground to avoid a shot, a warning squeeze on the arm to communicate caution and avoid verbalizing anything. But, in everyday life, she was rarely touched. Physical affection had been casual among her family—hugs, kisses on the cheek, pokes in the side, warm hands linking together. It was something she didn't know she missed until someone reminded her of how nice it was.

Thane's hands were not intrusive; rather, they felt natural, like his fingers were always meant to rest lightly upon her. But the straddling... that would have to stop.

She covered his hands with hers and eased them off of her, sliding backward and standing up. He stood with her, and their hands lingered together a moment before he released her, leaving his hanging at his sides. The space between the cot and his table was small—almost too cozy.

She considered, as she did so very often, the comfort he had offered to her in the washroom. She had felt like embracing him then, but had stopped herself. The reason why seemed so distant and irrelevant now, with him standing so very close, eyes staring down at her with a strange expression that appeared to be a failed attempt at being blank.

Shepard closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. It was hard to make this decision, but she felt it was for the best. "I think I'm going to go to bed."

"Of course." Thane said a little too quickly, scooting away from her to stand over by his guns on the wall. "Thank you for joining me this evening. I always enjoy your company."

"I do too." Shepard watched him clasp his hands behind his back, once against stiff and formal., and she was a little sad at the transformation.

Oh, screw it.

She crossed the space between them with two easy strides and wrapped her arms around him, giving him a light squeeze. Thane stiffened in her arms, but then slowly, cautiously, eased his arms around her. "I... Shepard... What...?" His heart beat rapidly against her chest.

A tongue tied assassin was definitely one of her favorite things in the galaxy. "No real reason, Thane. Hugs are just nice sometimes."

"Yes... I must agree." His chest seemed to vibrate, and she had the fleeting mental image of hugging a giant, scaly cat.

She released him, stepping back. "Good night, Krios."

His voice was as distant as his eyes, but a small smile played along his lips. "Pleasant dreams, Commander."

* * *

**A/N:** I sat on this one for awhile too-endlessly tweaking. I'm still not completely happy with it, and it's a bit silly, I know! I think that sometimes, though, the only way two people as reserved as Thane and my Commander can open up is over a drink. You say and do things that would normally get stopped by a mental checkpoint. I know it's been that way for me many times!


	8. One Who Sought the Thing He Loved

She didn't know which she hated worse—scanning planets for resources or waiting for the survey and dig teams to bring the resources back. It was, of course, the perfect time to do paperwork, and with Thane in mind, she had dutifully completed a few before considering herself finished. It had been a truly heroic effort.

And now she sat sprawled out on her couch, staring dreamily at the fish and enjoying a few quiet moments to reflect on the last mission. Kasumi was an interesting lady, and her bit of personal business had been even more intriguing. Shepard couldn't remember the last time she had squeezed herself into a dress like that, and she wasn't particularly eager to repeat the experience. It wasn't that she didn't like to dress up, for she did on certain occasions. But she felt like a little sister parading around in front of a bevy of big brothers from the way Garrus, Jacob, Joker, and even _Grunt_ had poked fun at her get up. Mordin had only chirped something about how her shoes were not medically advisable. Shepard was just glad she had eventually been able to negotiate a set of heels that were _only_ four inches high.

Thane, ever agreeable, held his tongue like the smart man he was.

Unfortunately, with Kaidan out of the picture, there was no one to truly appreciate her new look. But, at least she had gotten that new SMG out of the mission. It made the heels totally worth while, even if she did earn a blister on her heel the size of a quarter.

Dinner in the mess hall that night had only proved that her absence had given the boys more opportunity to come up with—what they thought—were witty one liners. Shepard two years ago might have been reluctant to tolerate such ease bordering on insolence on an Alliance warship, but now...

Well, what did it truly matter? It was entirely likely that they were all going to meet a grisly end at the hands of the Collectors in a couple of months anyway. Why not let the crew take their jabs? It was an easy way of letting off steam that didn't involve them being drunk at the end of it. Drunkenness was definitely something she wanted to avoid. No more shots for her.

So she had fired back a few quick retorts of her own, and the evening ended with the boys admitting that not only could she physically kick all of their asses, she could verbally do so as well.

The one thing about the evening that did disappoint her, however, was the fact that Thane had not joined in. She knew he could have more than held his own, but he stayed curiously silent, a thoughtful expression on his face. More than a few times Garrus had tried to get him to join their cause, but he merely smiled and sipped his tea, apparently content to sit and observe. Shepard would have been fine with that if his dark eyes had not settled on her a disconcerting amount of times.

She had felt his gaze like a physical weight upon her—each time she would snap her eyes over to him, and he would smile mysteriously, whether at the crews' antics or at her, she couldn't tell. Half the time she had been obsessing over the thought that perhaps she had lettuce in her teeth or something just as embarrassing. Surely _someone_ would have told her...

And when he had, at some point, slipped away without her noticing, she felt strangely cheated. She didn't, of course, expect him to say goodbye, but irrationally, she had wanted him to. Shepard assured herself that it was just what people did. They said goodbye when they left a room. Thane, oppressively civil, had neglected to do so. It frustrated her.

Honestly, her frustration frustrated her.

She glared at the dress as if the fault lay with the piece of cloth. Such emotional reactions to a silly situation were entirely unbecoming. Shepard picked at her fingernails and frowned. He probably _did_ say goodbye, but she was so busy trying to one up sassy crew members that she didn't notice. She was being sort of ridiculous.

Chewing on a fingernail, she considered seeing if he were up and about. She glanced over at her clock. It wasn't too late. At this time of the night, he was usually up cleaning his rifle. She could take her new SMG and tinker with it alongside him. It would be a much pleasanter way of spending the evening than brooding on supposed social slights alone in her room.

Consumed in these thoughts, it was almost alarming when EDI asked her if Thane might be allowed entrance to her cabin as though her mind had summoned the drell. When he walked in, Shepard thought she felt something different in him—a sort of taut vibration that hummed around the edges of his calm professionalism. Shepard always found herself incredibly intrigued by this veiled side, this unknown element. He had felt enough to throw himself at his future wife's feet, to pledge his affection to her, to _crazy dance_ with his son. As much as he tried, Shepard knew that he could not always be unflappable; the incident a couple of nights ago proved that. Was it wrong of her to want to see him lose a bit of control? Was it wrong of her to want to be the catalyst for it? Probably. She smiled at his polite greeting and motioned for him to join her in the 'living room'. " Good evening, Krios. Can I get you something to drink?" Manners, and whatnot. She may live with a bunch of savages, but her mother raised a perfect hostess, even if Shepard didn't have too many opportunities to exercise that training.

"Ah, no. Thank you for the offer." He folded himself down on the couch, balancing an ankle across his knee, hands resting in his lap. "I hope I am not disturbing you, Shepard. It is not bothersome to you that I speak to you in your cabin?" He looked open, inviting, the tension that he had carried at his entrance flowing out of him like a cool stream. She envied how he was able to immediately calm himself.

"Of course not, Thane. I encourage all of my crew to seek me out whenever necessary." She watched him curiously as his eyelids blinked rapidly for a moment, and she had the sense that her comment had made him a bit unhappy, although she couldn't figure out why. "Is there something I can help you with? Is Kolyat still all right?"

Thane let out a pleased hum, his supposed displeasure gone as quickly as it had arrived. "Kolyat is doing well, I thank you for asking. Captain Bailey tells me that he is working hard and is earnest in his efforts to help others. It is... comforting. In fact, I have just finished recording a message for him."

Shepard flashed him a quick grin. "So, still on speaking terms? That's good news."

His lips quirked back at her. "Our path is still long and arduous. But it is encouraging, yes."

"So, Kolyat's fine, and you appear to be bright eyed and cheerful." He cocked his head at her, and she gave a small smile. "What brings you to me, then?"

He leaned forward, grasping his ankle lightly with one hand. "Must I always come to you with a problem, Shepard? May I not seek out your presence merely for your company?"

She shifted in her seat, momentarily surprised. He seemed unsettled himself, and broke his steadfast gaze upon her to look at the ground, settling back in his seat.

"I confess," he continued after a moment, eyes returning to her face, "that I have come for another reason as well. I wished to ask you something." He paused a moment, gathering courage or his thoughts, she couldn't tell. "I know that our mission is important." It seemed he would start with a preface. "I realize what a calculated risk you take when you divert time and resources to a problem that is unrelated to the mission. You have my eternal gratitude."

"Thane, you're a part of my team. I'll always do anything within my power to ensure that every member is clear and focused on the task ahead." As the words left her mouth, they sounded clean. Clinical. Words to a script that she did not enjoy. Her quick eyes caught Thane's hands tense for a moment before easing back into their natural calm. His gaze wavered from her to rest on the fish swimming lazily in their tank.

"More importantly, though," she found herself saying, earning his eyes back on her. "I know how much your son means to you. I know what lengths I would go to in order to save someone I love. Even if I weren't your commanding officer, I still would have followed you to the edge of the galaxy for him. Defeating the Reapers means nothing if we cannot save those closest to us."

He bowed his head slightly, eyes lidded and a smile playing on his lips. "Indeed, Shepard."

"After this is all over, will you go be with him? Make up for lost time?"

"I do not deny that I would like to visit with him, yes. As you said before, as we grow older, we no longer have the luxury of time." The unspoken threat of his illness danced at the edge of her mind. "And what will you do?"

"When everything's done?" She heaved a deep sigh. "That goal seems so far away it's almost unattainable. I have no idea. There will always be more enemies to fight, I'm sure."

He let out his breath in a soft hiss and shook his head at her. "Such weight upon your words, Shepard. It is not healthy, always fretting over the future." He held up his hand at her barely begun protest. "I know I do not always follow my own advice. That does not mean it is not good advice."

She laughed at him, and he smiled wide enough to flash his white teeth at her. "So what would you have me do, hmm Thane? Take a holiday?"

He tilted his head and blinked his eyes at her, a distant rumble sounding in his chest. "Yes, actually. That is exactly what I suggest. Can you recall the last time you had a moment for yourself? No missions, no duties."

She opened her mouth to respond to him when she discovered that she didn't have an answer. "I… um. No." She admitted.

He shook his head disapprovingly at her. "As I suspected."

She gave an eloquent shrug. "There's no time for fun and games. Galaxy to save, and all that."

Thane leaned back, draping one arm across the back of her couch. With his exotic colors and lazy expression (which she knew was merely a pretense), he looked like an elaborate decoration. "Yet you allow those of us under your command time for fun and games during intermittent shore leaves. Why do you not join us?"

"A couple of reasons, actually." She held up a finger. "One, no one wants their commander hanging around when they're trying to relax; and two," she ticked off another finger. "There's always too much work to do. I use that time to catch up."

His eyelids flicked at her. "Like you caught up on your paperwork?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Touché. But I did complete several all on my own today. You should be proud." She doubled back on the conversation. "Weren't you going to ask me something?"

"Ah, yes." Thane traced the seam along the back of the couch with one finger. "If you will not allow yourself a proper shore leave, perhaps you will permit a simple meal outside of this cold, metal hull."

Shepard felt a low fluttering deep in the pit of her stomach. "What did you have in mind?"

"Our itinerary, if I recall correctly, takes us to Nos Astra in a few days for upgrades. Would you dine with me that night? I spent several years in the city, and I can take you to places that your concierge would not even know to offer."

Shepard wondered if Thane knew how suggestive his last words were. His eyes were, as always, emerald pools of complete inscrutability.

Her thoughts automatically leaped to contemplate the excitement and folly of a date with Thane. But, he could not have meant it in such a way. It was ridiculous. They had definitely progressed past the relationship of mere commander and soldier, but it wasn't... like that. She enjoyed his company, to be sure, and it seemed like he enjoyed hers. Two adults could go out and share a meal together, and it wouldn't be the end of the world. She would do the same with Garrus or Joker or anyone else. Her long list of justifications sounded loud in her head.

But, her silence seemed to make the drell anxious. "By your own admission, you do not allow yourself time to relax. You make a special effort to ensure that we, as your crew, have sufficient time to repose. Your allowances in the mess hall with the others regarding your clothing was not as subtle in its design as you intended it to be-at least to me. I... we would be remiss in not returning the favor, for it is just as important for you to... let off some steam as the rest of us. So, please, Shepard, think of it as a small repayment for all that you have done for the crew, for me. It is really the least I can do."

Shepard savored the brief pleasure she felt at him decoding her ulterior motive in letting Garrus and the others rag on her. And, Thane, of course, had done a lot for her too. He had been there for her at her worst, and when he told her of the trouble his son had gotten into, she knew before he had even finished that the answer to any question he may have voiced would have been a resounding yes. They always seemed to meet each other in the mess hall; as such it seemed almost natural that they move to spend additional time with each other over food and drink once again.

She had been silent for too long, and Thane seemed uncomfortable; his arm came off of the back of the couch, and he rubbed the fused middle fingers of both hands together. She gave in, hoping her words would ease the fluttering in her stomach and his fidgeting. "As long as we're not out too late."

He gave her a small, triumphant smile. "I give you my word that I will have you back aboard the ship at a decent hour." He stood in one smooth, graceful movement. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Commander."

She murmured an answer and watched as he bowed low to her and took his leave, wondering if she would regret what she had just given assent to.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay. Classes have picked up, and I have too many assignments to grade. The next chapter is pretty much written though, but I wrote it a long time ago, so I'll have to spend time going through it and making sure it still makes sense. Regardless, you shouldn't have to wait so long for the next one.


	9. The Affections Gently Lead Us On

Although she could not imagine Thane saying anything, somehow the entire ship knew about their future excursion within twenty-four hours. Honestly, she blamed EDI, who probably told Joker, who then told Tali, who told the engineers, who told... everybody. There wasn't anything to tell, really. Thane was taking her for a meal. She could just as easily share a meal with anyone else on the ship. Sharing food hardly implied intimacy.

So she ignored the sideways glances, took Mordin's 'advice' with a laugh, and pointedly told Kelly that she did _not_ need any help selecting an outfit. While the rest of the ship seemed bound and determined to make something out of this, she hoped that her usual calm demeanor squashed _some_ rumors.

But, as she stood in front of her closet in her undergarments and flicked the hangers back and forth, she couldn't help feeling a _little_ nervous. She didn't have too many civilian outfits. She definitely wasn't wearing Kasumi's dress again. And from the few others that she did have... well, was Thane taking her somewhere nice? Somewhere casual? Who knew? And she felt too awkward to ask him. So, it had to be something in the middle. Maybe she should have accepted Kelly's help after all.

EDI alerted her to Thane's arrival, and she let out an undignified yelp of surprise. She had stood in front of her closet for too long. "Hold on, EDI." She grabbed the first piece of cloth that her hand touched, a deep crimson dress of all things (Thane probably wouldn't even be able to tell what color it was—not that it mattered, of course), and a pair of soft soled flats—perfect for running in if she had to. She always bought shoes with the thought of how well they would allow her to run for her life.

Shepard slipped the dress over her head. It was form fitting—also good for fighting in—and was shorter than she remembered. Cerberus must have added a few inches while she was cooking. But it was not too embarrassing—mid thigh was hardly provoking. It was still long enough for her to strap a slim pistol to her inner thigh, which she promptly did. She quickly looked herself over in the mirror.

Hair not sticking up all over the place? Check.

Underarms recently shaved? Check.

Breasts fully contained? Check.

Dress not caught in underwear? Check.

"Okay, let him in."

Thane entered just as she started slipping on her shoes. "Sorry to keep you waiting. I lost track of time."

"Not at all." He looked the same as ever—not that he needed to dress up.

His gaze traveled down the length of her form, and she narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly acutely aware of all her physical inadequacies—the thin lattice work of her scars, the sickly paleness of her legs (saving the galaxy afforded little time for getting a tan), the sheer audacity of _ever_ trying to look like a normal woman who wore more than armor. "What?"

He must have caught the tone in her voice, for he gave a soothing rumble from the back of his throat. "I am just reminded that humans are only one color all over."

"Were you expecting stripes?" She said, somewhat mollified.

"Actually, yes." He half grinned at her. "But you look just as lovely without them."

She couldn't stop the blush that crept up her face, and he let out a soft laugh. "Ah, I spoke too soon. You do have more colors."

* * *

As usual, it was business before pleasure. Their reason for visiting first and foremost was purchasing some new upgrades, and so they headed to the marketplace first. There she haggled with vendors, weaseling discounts out of them so deep that she knew they had seller's remorse as soon as the transaction was completed. Thane stood slightly behind her, a silent presence that was more of a feeling than anything.

A lot of the vendors didn't recognize her without her helmet and armor, and she took advantage of it. There was no need to remind them of who she was, especially since the Cerberus accounts she paid with were not specifically tied to her name. Instead, she let them assume that she was a recent immigrant, rich and bored. It only took a stretch of their imagination to believe that she would favor their store to spend all her excess credits if they made it worth her time.

One vendor in particular gave her trouble, however. The volus was stubborn, to be sure, and seemed just as unwilling to budge as she was. "Fifty thousand credits?" She sniffed. "That is simply unacceptable. I'll have you know that I can purchase this on the Citadel for half that price."

"I doubt that, earth clan." A deep breath. "I have a cousin on the Citadel. He would never sell that low."

She pursed her lips in frustration. She _really_ wanted that upgrade. Shepard was just about to concede, when Thane's hand lightly rested on her wrist. "Let us not waste our time here, dear." The volus seemed shocked to discover the drell was standing there. "We may have to pay slightly more at the asari's kiosk, but the service is infinitely better." His throat thrummed disapprovingly, and he looked down the length of his nose at the merchant. "I do not believe our integrity will be questioned there."

It took all of Shepard's will power not to laugh at the faux haughtiness that Thane exuded. "Now, now, do not be hasty." The volus backpedaled. "I meant no disrespect. I can give you a fifteen percent discount to make up for our misunderstanding."

Shepard pounced on the merchant's concession. "Make it twenty, and you have a life long customer."

The volus took a deep breath. "Done."

As soon as they were out of ear shot, Shepard turned to Thane with a raised eyebrow. "Dear?"

Thane met her gaze, something dangerously close to a smirk on his face. "I was merely playing along with your game, Shepard. You are as ruthless at trade as you are at war."

She crossed her arms and grinned at him. "You look more like a bodyguard than a boyfriend."

Thane took a step closer to her. "Perhaps. But a bodyguard does not offer advice. A boyfriend does. And anyone who looked at you would know that you need no protection. You are, indeed, a force to be reckoned with."

"I suppose I should be flattered."

"Yes." He said simply. "And now, if our business is concluded, follow me. Your holiday awaits."

* * *

The restaurant overlooked the sea. The sun was casting its final rays across the waters, and everything was tinted a rosy pink. The water seemed made of liquid amethyst, and as Shepard looked over the railing, she desperately wanted to kick off her shoes and run through the surf, feeling the sand between her toes.

Thane seemed to guess at her thoughts. He leaned on the rail next to her, looking out over the waves. "The water, it is warm. The sand is fine, and until you get to where the waves touch it, it shifts constantly underneath you, making you work to keep your balance. There are small blue crabs in the rocks and anemones the color of your blush earlier this evening." She colored again at his remembrance. "Yes," his voice rumbled an octave deeper than usual. "That one."

He turned around to face her, back to the water. "If we had a whole day, I would take you swimming. There are yellow and green fish that play here, and they are quite stunning."

His eyes were dark and inviting, and she smiled at the thought of him lazily backstroking through the soft waves. "Maybe when all this is done... maybe you could take me back here."

His eyes unfocused for a moment, and Shepard wondered what memory was running through his head. "Yes." He said finally, pushing himself away from the railing. "Let us eat."

The waiter recognized Thane and directed them immediately to a seat in the corner, near the largest window. The menu was large and varied, and Shepard had no problem picking out something that sounded divine. Thane got his 'usual', whatever that was, and in short order they were both exclaiming over the meal.

"I know that our food on the Normandy has been pretty good lately, but this is just perfect." She savored a bite, closing her eyes slightly as she chewed.

Thane smiled at her, a distant rumble vibrating his chest. "I am pleased you like it. Often when we visit a planet, we go only to the necessary destinations. I have been all over the galaxy. I could show you many things."

"Well, if all your spots are as good as this, consider me signed up." She took a sip of her wine. "Tell me about some other places on Nos Astra I've missed."

Thane leaned forward and began telling her of the hidden bookstores, the hiking trails that ran around the city's perimeter, the secluded beaches, obscure flower shops, and quiet places to think. His gaze became unfocused, and Shepard knew that everything he said was taken from a memory recorded in perfect detail.

"This is what your memory is good for, Thane." She said when he finished. "I would give a lot to be able to clearly remember some of the better moments from when I was a girl even if it means that I have to share them with the bad."

"I have found that it helps other species to speak of them." He rested his chin on his hand. "Share your memories with me, Shepard."

She cast her eyes to her plate and chased some vegetables around with a fork. "I... they're from a long time ago."

"As a girl, yes?" He pressed. "Where did you live?"

She glanced at the half empty glass of wine, already refilled several times by the waiter. Thane, for his part, had only two, but his constant... _purring,_ for lack of a better word, seemed to betray his state as easily as her flushed cheeks. "I was part of a colony on Mindoir." She found herself saying. "We were an agricultural colony. I grew up a farmer's daughter." She smiled to herself. "I loved the harvest."

"What did you do?" Thane's eyes were intense in their scrutiny, and she knew that this, all of this, was being filed away—a permanent record.

She told him of their crops, of the harvest parties, the songs. The work was always hard, but she loved the feel of the damp earth on her hands, the pride when the first tender green shoots would break through the soil. She tried to describe the bushels of warm grain, how it felt to slid her hand into the kernels. The clear summer nights were her favorite—she would lay out in the fields, staring up at the stars and try to find Sol. "What made you leave such a life?" Thane asked. He took a drink, but his eyes never left her face.

She debated whether or not to skirt the issue or just come out with it. She didn't like talking about her parents' deaths; didn't like the sympathy that it inevitably inspired. It was just a conversation that she was tired of having. Thane blinked at her hesitation and leaned forward slightly, placing one hand palm up on the table. It was a gesture she had seen him do before, and she still wasn't sure what it meant. It looked like he wanted her to take his hand, but that interpretation simply didn't work with the context.

She looked at his palm, so strange with its unfamiliar creases and fused fingers. The words tumbled out of her. "Batarian slavers came when I was sixteen. We weren't really prepared to deal with it. We should have been. The settlement was slaughtered or taken. I was left alone."

Thane hummed sadly, quiet for a few moments. "And so you joined the Alliance for revenge?"

"At first." She traced patterns in the wooden table with the tip of her finger. "But after Akuze, revenge lost its appeal." Shepard dug into a crack with her fingernail. "It's the motif of my life. Loss. Even if they don't die, people have a habit of leaving you." Her thoughts landed on Kaidan, and she dug deeper.

"A person's absence does not necessarily mean they do not care."

"It's not just absence. It's abandonment. How many times have I sacrificed for my friends? How many times have I thrown myself into danger for their concerns?" Her fingernail was starting to hurt. "And now? He leaves me, and he won't even give me the decency of a voice. Just shuts me out." With a shock, Shepard realized what she was saying and wished she could reel the last few sentences back into her mouth. She sucked on the tip of her abused finger as her mind dutifully played her confession back for her. 'He'... how _embarrassing_.

"You speak of your comrade Alenko." Surprised, her eyes snapped back to his face, but it was unreadable. What exactly did Thane know about her and Kaidan? "You must understand, Shepard, that sometimes even those closest to us will offer disappointment. But if we truly care for them, we must always offer forgiveness."

"But where do we draw the line?" She felt a hint of anger creep into her voice and let it. "How many times do we let ourselves be disappointed?"

"There is not an answer to that question, for it is unique to every situation." Her hand dropped back to the table, and she felt his eyes follow it.

"Shades of gray, huh." She gave a pale smile.

"Indeed." His voice lowered. "You must... I cannot imagine the confusion, the fear, the anger, you must have felt upon returning to this life. You are strong. You persevere. But not everyone is as strong as you."

"I am not that strong."

"You consistently take more on to your slight human shoulders than I ever thought possible. Each day I am surprised by you. Your strength is such that even you cannot fathom it."

"But that's the problem, don't you see?" Her eyes flashed angrily at him, and he blinked rapidly at her. "People like you, who think I can do more and more and... one day, it will be too much. And you won't realize it. I'll fail you all."

"No, Shepard." This time his hand did reach for her, and his fingers ghosted over her own. "On that day, _we_ will be there for you. _We_ will save you." The inky darkness of his eyes enveloped her.

"You yearn for the simple days." He continued, voice soft and thrumming. "I can see that. The days of family and intimacy and warmth. I do too. But it is never easy for people like us, siha. However, merely because the path is difficult does not mean it is not worth taking. I can see you one day, happy and free from your burdens. I know it is possible."

She was quiet for a few moments as she pondered his words. It was one thing to say that he would be there; it was another to actually _be_ there. But she appreciated the thought. His hope, so precious, was almost heartbreaking. Thane, who should regret more than any of them, held on to the most. She felt her anxiety ebb away, and marveled at how, once again, Thane had known exactly what to say to her. Perhaps that was why they got along so well. They had both lost so much. But that one word...

"I think my translator just glitched. Siha?"

Thane smiled at her and his fingers pressed a bit more on hers. "Someday I'll tell you what it means."

* * *

He escorted her to the entrance of her cabin—the hour was late, but she didn't mind. "Thanks for the meal, Thane. You were right—I needed to get out."

That tension was there again, and Thane seemed nervous, antsy even. "I enjoyed our time together. You are a fascinating woman, Shepard. I do not wish to overstep my bounds, but I find myself considering you as a friend. I hope we can continue our conversations both during my time here on the Normandy and beyond."

He was so polite, hands clasped behind his back, standing straight and formal. A friend? He was certainly easier to talk to than Garrus—who was too busy calibrating anyway—and unlike Tali she didn't feel a mother's instinct toward him. Friends? Perhaps. "I hope we can too—having you as a friend—perhaps more than a friend—is unexpected, but welcome."

As soon as the words left her mouth, she could have smacked herself for the double interpretation. More than a friend—she _meant_ as a confidant, an adviser, but it could mean so much more... A small voice piped up to suggest that perhaps her slip was more Freudian than she realized, but she shoved it unceremoniously down.

Thane blinked at her words and inclined his head slightly. "More than friends? That is... intriguing."

She wanted to backpedal, wanted to clarify, but she just stood dumbly, unable to make her voice work for her. He reached out to her face, and for one terrifyingly beautiful moment, Shepard believed that he would cup her cheek in that foreign hand, but he moved past her face to tuck one errant strand of hair behind her ear. Small parts of her, irrationally, _wanted_ him to touch her. It was wrong; it was foolish; it was probably the wine.

But as he left, murmuring goodnight to her and wishing her pleasant dreams, the heat of his slight touch burned on her as surely as if he had branded her.


	10. Flying From Something That She Dreads

"_More than friends_."

The first image that popped in her mind when she woke up in the morning was that of Thane considering her so-called 'proposition'. She let out a groan and ground the heels of her palms into her eyes. Shepard would never drink again—she swore to whatever deity currently happened to be listening (one she hoped wouldn't be too vengeful when she inevitably broke her solemn vow).

Yet, as she puttered around her room—making the bed, shedding her sleepwear and tossing it down the laundry chute—she couldn't stop thinking about... _him_.

While Mordin had warned her about the psychotropic effect of drell... bodily fluids... she felt that Thane's eyes deserved more of a warning label than anything. She recalled that at first she had found the pressure of his gaze to be oppressive and intrusive, but now... she sought it out, welcomed it, and mourned it when it was gone. Once she had found them frightening in their darkness, but perhaps now that she could interpret his minute facial expressions—a subtle raise of an eye ridge, a set of eyelids a fraction lower than usual, a careful blink that said more than an entire monologue—she looked to those eyes for comfort and reassurance.

In the shower, her thoughts kept straying to the roughness of his fingers on her skin. Was his skin naturally rougher? Or was the texture due to callouses formed by handling so many weapons over the years? They were always cooler than she thought they would be, and during missions where the conditions were particularly stifling, she had more than once entertained the thought of simply draping her too hot bare body across him, letting the heat from her skin seep over to him—for his part, he could be like a lizard on a hot rock. It would be a mutually beneficial situation, but she doubted any of her reptilian squadmates wanted a sweaty human rolling all over them.

But last night... those hands had not been cool. She found herself mimicking his small gesture, and she jerked her hand down, clenching her fist tight enough to leave small crescent moons on her palm. She shut the water off, moving through the rest of her routine in quick, jerky movements. It was time to stop daydreaming. Time to get to work.

She grabbed a piece of toast from the mess hall—she had never been one for a big breakfast—and gulped down a cup of lukewarm tea, hastily chewing while leaning against the kitchen counter. The other crew members ate a more leisurely breakfast, but Shepard didn't want to waste time chitchatting, especially since she knew at least one smartass would ask her about last night. She had her money on Garrus, who kept sneaking devious looks over at her.

She was so concerned with shoving as much toast into her mouth as humanly possible and keeping two very dangerous eyes on Garrus that she was completely unaware when Thane sidled up to her. "Good morning."

And of course the toast went down the wrong pipe and instead of being cool or suave or at least _normal_ she spent the next few minutes choking to death on a piece of bread.

She barely registered Thane's steadying hand on her upper arm, but she _did_ feel him smack her on the back. Drell didn't know their own strength, it seemed.

Shepard tore herself away from him and leaned over the counter, wheezing most attractively. Thane grabbed her discarded cup and filled it with water, handing it to her wordlessly.

She emptied the mug, finally catching her breath and turned around to see the crew staring at her like she was a strange new species of insect. "Fine. I'm fine." She coughed once more and tried to kill Garrus with a glare—he was far too amused by the situation, although he had the brains to stifle his laughter.

"Yeah, nothing to see here." He finally took pity on her and turned to the rest of the crew. "Like you've never crammed too much food in your mouth before?"

Shepard shook her head and leaned against the counter, folding her arms across her chest. She glanced over at Thane, whose raised eye ridge spoke volumes. "So, thanks for saving me from my toasty nemesis, but honestly, I wouldn't have even had the problem if you would make the _slightest_ noise while you walk. Do I need to put a bell around your neck?"

Thane gracefully ignored her last comment. "You are welcome."

She sniffed, frowning at him. "I think you actually enjoy scaring the bejesus out of me."

His eyes grew wide—oh so innocent. "Enjoy it?" He pressed a sincere hand over his heart. "I have no idea what you mean." He leaned in toward her, and Shepard was both terrified and delighted by how close he was. "I am serious—I have no idea what 'bejesus' means."

She scoffed at him, and he pulled back with a smirk. "Look it up in a dictionary, Mr. 'Seeha'." Shepard was amazed at her own audacity for bringing up last night first.

"It's 'siha'," he corrected. "And that is fair enough."

Shepard turned to face him completely. "So, still not going to tell me what it means?"

"Someday." He took a special delight in being cryptic, that much was obvious.

"Yeah, I heard that when you said it the first time." She worried at her bottom lip, and could feel Thane's gaze drawn there. "Listen, about last night..." His eyes on her lips made things low inside her clench.

"Yes?" He prompted when she trailed off.

"Commander, there you are!"

Both Thane and Shepard started at the yeoman's voice, and Shepard didn't know if she wanted to murder Kelly for the interruption or kiss her. "Good morning Kelly. Have more paperwork for me to do?"

Kelly's grin was too wide when she looked at the two of them, but Shepard's glare toned down its wattage a bit. "Not this time, Shepard. You do have a few people who want to speak to you though." She brought up her omnitool. "Let's see..." She ran through a lengthy list, and Shepard felt herself mentally tallying all the time that it would take to see all of those people.

She thanked Kelly for the schedule update, and the yeoman gave her an apologetic smile and left. Thane had prepped himself a cup of tea during Kelly's monologue, and Shepard watched as he tugged delicately on the string of his tea bag while it steeped. "Looks like I have my work cut out for me today."

"Indeed."

She had to continue their previous conversation, but she didn't want to have to rush through it. It would have to wait until she had more time. "When are you free next?" Shepard realized it was the first time _she_ had ever made plans with him, and it felt a little weird.

Thane gave her a small smile. "I would have to check my schedule—it is so full." His smile widened a bit at her knitted eyebrows. He was such a damned comedian. "I am yours whenever you require me, Shepard."

She made a special effort to not think on the words he had chosen. "Right, then. I'll see you later tonight, perhaps."

Thane inclined his head. "I look forward to it."

She didn't see him again for the rest of the day. Normally it wouldn't bother her—she'd gone days without seeing him before, but now it made her anxious. She thought of their inevitable conversation, and was troubled by the different shades of confusion, embarrassment and budding regret that roiled in her mind. It wasn't fair to lead him on when she had no intention of being in any sort of relationship, but a small part of her dreaded correcting him. It was more than the simple social awkwardness that made her shy away from their future discussion, it was the end that it represented—an end to something that had barely begun.

For, truthfully, she was curious about Thane. She wondered what sort of man he would be as more than just her friend, more than just a squad mate. But, she chalked it up to girlish fancy—Thane obviously liked her enough to not reject her outright, and it was natural for a girl's thoughts to leap to the possibilities of such a liaison.

It was past dinner when she finally finished her tasks for the day, and she grabbed an apple from the mess hall, not wanting to dirty the kitchen for one person. "EDI, can you locate Thane for me, please?"

"Sere Krios is in the armory, Commander."

"Thanks." She would not think about Thane polishing his rifle.

"Logging you out, Shepard."

She wrestled with the problem of Jacob—if he were there it would make an already awkward situation even more unbearable—but when the door to the armory opened for her, only Thane was present. His back was to her, but Shepard could see that his rifle was disassembled, and he hummed a strange melody to himself while he cleaned the inside of the barrel.

She hadn't even took a step inside when he raised one hand in greeting. "How was your day, siha?"

"Busy." She walked over to stand next to him, letting his apparent nickname for her slide. "How did you know it was me?"

Thane glanced over at her. "Your scent."

Shepard really wanted to ask him what she smelled like, but that was far too odd a question to voice. Instead she gave an intelligent 'oh', hoped she didn't smell like ass, and moved on. "So, anyway, I wanted to talk to you about last night." Straight to the point. She was proud of herself.

"Ah, yes." She knew he hadn't forgotten, but appreciated the social nicety. Thane grabbed a towel and started rubbing the grease off of his hands, turning to face her. "What is it you wanted to say?"

"I may have given you the... wrong impression." His hands were far safer to look at than his eyes, and she busied herself with how he rubbed the cloth along each finger.

"Oh?" He sat the towel aside, and she made the mistake of looking up at his face.

Her resolve faltered when she met those dark eyes with her own. "I... Well... I said that... and I meant..." He cocked his head at her and looked confused. She didn't blame him. "Sorry, I'm usually far more coherent than this." She rotated the apple around in her hands, thankful to have something to fidget with.

"Whatever you have to say, know that I will support you in any decision you make." Her heart beat frantically as she wondered if he already knew the words she had been preparing all day but was utterly failing to get out.

She felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over her—why was she even doing this? All of her carefully prepared justifications and excuses seemed to crumble when faced with his soft words. He could not defeat merely with weapons—his language was just as deadly as any other part of him.

She was gripping the fruit so hard that it bruised, and Thane closed what little distance there was between them to take it from her, setting it aside on the table. "You have eaten little today. That is not enough."

Shepard supposed she should be annoyed that he was keeping tabs on her diet, but all she could feel was overwhelming gratitude—her chest tightened with the thought of someone caring for her so much that he would bother himself with how much _food_ she ate. It was a novelty—to be fussed over, to be looked after. It was a relief to be with someone who knew she wasn't invincible, and treated her accordingly.

"Thane..." She wanted to thank him, to put these thoughts into actual words, but her hands drifted up to the crimson ribbing along his throat—perhaps a prelude to a hug—but whatever intent she had vanished when her fingers brushed lightly along the thin folds, and Thane let out a soft sigh, his throat vibrating under her touch.

His hands—still smelling of gun grease—caught hers. The distance between them could be gone with a deep breath, and one word left his lips like a prayer, "Siha."

One of his hands left hers, and finally did what she had wanted him to do since last night—he cradled his hand against her cheek, rubbing his thumb on the edge of her lips. She wanted to take his thumb in her mouth; she wanted to press herself against him; she wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and find out once and for all if he tasted like cloves and cedar as well.

Those dark green eyes of his were hooded, staring at her with an expression she had not yet seen him wear. It made her stomach flutter in response; she found herself trembling in anticipation of what he might do next. His mouth parted slightly, and he leaned over her, his breath warming her lips, and she tilted her head up to him automatically—drawn to him like a flower to the sun.

She realized with a jolt that he was about to kiss her.

Even more startling was the realization that she _wanted_ him to kiss her.

She wrenched herself from him, stumbling back a few steps. Thane's eyes widened in shock, and Shepard thought she saw something hurt flicker across his face.

"I'm sorry—I have to go." He reached toward her, saying her name in such a way that it made her want to turn back. But, before she knew it she was out of the armory, fleeing to her cabin like death was on her heels.

* * *

**A/N:** This chapter is for C., for it would not have been written if not for her comment! I have in mind, for this chapter and the next, Sir Thomas Wyatt's poem "Whoso List to Hunt":

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,  
But as for me, _alas_, I may no more.  
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,  
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.  
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind  
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore  
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,  
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.  
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,  
As well as I may spend his time in vain.  
And graven with diamonds in letters plain  
There is written, her fair neck round about:  
_Noli me tangere_, for Caesar's I am,  
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Just thought you'd like to read it too! It's lovely.


	11. Solitude or Grief Should Be Thy Portion

What had she been thinking?

Shepard fiddled around with her omnitool in Engineering, trying to look busy in a futile effort to avoid Thane for as long as possible. She had succeeded for nearly a week. It was amazing how many places aboard the Normandy she could ferret herself off to, but Engineering was her favorite. Thane seemed to hardly ever come down here, so Shepard could almost guarantee avoiding a run in with him. She had only had to dive down to Jack's hidey hole once to skirt around a confrontation.

Yes, Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, Unleasher of the Rachni, Sole Survivor of Akuze... was a complete coward.

She did not regret it. She knew Thane would want to talk about what had happened in the last few moments of their evening together, and it was her earnest desire to never talk about it ever again. Was it too much to ask him to pretend that it never happened? She had a feeling that it probably was.

How was it that she could face entire companies of mercenaries, stand toe to toe with rogue Spectres, and take down a millennia old sentient machine, but when faced with something as simple as her own turbulent emotions she was a complete wreck? She always had grand plans when it came to dealing with her feelings, but there was something completely unsettling about that stupid drell—it utterly destroyed whatever resolve she had.

It wasn't that she didn't like Thane. She did. He was nice, understanding, easy to talk to, funny, attractive...

She blushed furiously at the last word. No. Absolutely not. There were several really good reasons why that was a terrible thought.

Firstly, he was her subordinate. It was a bad idea to get involved with subordinates. They had a tendency to get really mad at you when you inevitably chose to save them during suicide missions. It soured the whole encounter.

Secondly, she couldn't afford distractions. She had thought that Saren would be the biggest pain in the ass to take out, but the Collectors were proving even more annoying. Distractions could be fatal, and it would be irresponsible for her to indulge in one.

Thirdly...

Well, thirdly there was Kaidan. Yes, she was mad. Yes, he had called her a traitor and sent a pseudo apology that still infuriated her whenever she thought on it. But... she did still care for him. She wasn't sure if it was still love, but... could she just move on like that? What did that say about her? About what they had shared together? She had allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to start a family, a normal family, perhaps even on Earth. No slavers. No death. No sorrow. Just her and Kaidan and kids and happiness and contentment and love.

But that seemed gone now. She choked back a bitter laugh at the absurdity of it all. Shepard as a mother? How ridiculous.

Her omnitool chirped angrily at her, and she looked down at the string of faux commands that she had typed into it. Heaving a sigh, she waved it off and turned around to lean against the console.

One of her strengths had always been her introspection. She thought carefully about what she did, her motivations, her justifications. It was important for her to remain true to herself and her morals, and sometimes it was hard to do that on a battlefield. Thus, when she had the opportunity, she made a point of always weighing her decisions and examining things from every angle. So... what was her M.O. here?

Yet, try as she might, her thoughts were muddled and too tangled together to figure out. She felt torn between two paths—both of which honestly seemed doomed to failure, and likely through her own sabotage. She could have mended things with Kaidan, handled it much better. But she had let it explode in her face. And Thane was... he was...

Was she only attracted to men who represented loss? Was she always going to be this broken? It was troubling—seeing a pattern and being powerless to stop it. It made her feel weak and stupid.

She shoved herself off of the console and stalked toward the elevator. She didn't want to think about this down here. The risk of another crewmember disturbing her thoughts was too great. Besides, the fish in her cabin always calmed her down. It would be nice to wallow in self pity with the soft bubbles of the tank as her soundtrack.

She closed her eyes as the doors slid shut and leaned against the back of the elevator. It quickly moved up to the next floor and... stopped.

Oh no.

She almost didn't want to open her eyes, as if a refusal to see was a rejection of all reality. But, the scent of cedar and cloves tickled her nose, and even without sight she knew he was there.

Shepard forced her eyes open to see Thane standing uncertainly outside of the elevator door, a myriad of strange emotions flitting across his face. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, neither of them saying a word, which somehow made their encounter even more agonizing. She was acutely aware of how unbelievably childish she was being (imagine, talking about _feelings_ like a goddamn _adult_), and she felt the blush march up her cheeks regardless of her earnest wish to appear unaffected.

The doors started closing, and Shepard thought he would mercifully remain outside, but at the last moment, he seemed to make a mental resolution and squeezed himself inside.

He pushed the button for the CIC deck and settled into a corner, apparently content to not say a word. Shepard was thrilled. All signs pointed to her making it to her cabin unscathed.

It was unfair how he lulled her into complacency, for only a few seconds later, Thane reached over and firmly pressed the button to stop the lift between floors. She stared at the elevator console like it had just declared her execution.

"You have been avoiding me." The soft sadness in his voice hurt far more than if he had just been angry. She preferred anger. Anger allowed _her_ to get angry, and she would much rather be angry than guilty and regretful.

"No." She lied, looking down at the floor, shuffling her feet a bit.

"Shepard." The reproachfulness in that one word made her squirm.

"Okay, yes." She wrung her hands together. "I'm sorry."

Thane was quiet for a moment, then said softly, "I have offended you."

Shepard flicked her eyes up to him, surprised that he would come to that conclusion. Was it not painfully obvious that she was just a gigantic tool? "No, it's fine. It's not you."

Thane caught her gaze, and she felt herself drowning in his eyes. "Drell women are easy to read. They are not like human females, where not only is everything a subtext, but it is a subtext hidden in an endnote written in a completely foreign language. Even so, I know when my Commander is unhappy. And it appears that I am the source of her displeasure."

His scrutiny was too much, and she lowered her eyes. "No. No. I mean, yes, I'm unhappy. But it's not your fault. I'm just..." She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to will the stupidity out of herself.

She fell quiet, and after several moments of silence, Thane shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "You regret it." It was a statement rather than a question, and the resignation in his words made Shepard ache. "The solution is simple, then. We will move forward as if it did not happen. I... I do not mind."

And here he was, offering her exactly what she wanted with a cherry on top. So, why did she want to cry and hug him, and tell him he was stupid for thinking that, and she did want him, but she was too idiotic to handle this like a normal person?

Unbidden, the thought of his gentle hands danced in her mind, touching her fingers so softly, moving over her hips, ghosting past her cheek, trailing across her lips. Who knew that the hands of a trained killer could be so tender? She would be lying to herself if she said that she didn't want him to touch her again. All of their brief touches compounded and culminated into a frustrating desire that she knew couldn't be fulfilled. She could try to say that it was just physical contact that she missed, but that would also be avoiding the truth. She wanted _his_ touch, alongside _his_ rumbling voice and compassionate words.

"It's just a bad idea." She found herself saying. "I've been there before. It ends badly. And I... I don't want the same to happen with you." She looked up to see him nodding, his face a carefully blank mask.

"It is one thing to trust someone on the battlefield, but it is another to trust someone with your heart." And, yet again, he somehow put into words exactly how she felt. What was wrong with her?

"I'm sorry." Her voice caught, and she folded her arms tightly across her chest in an effort to restrain the emotion that seemed to grow impossibly large from the ache in her heart. For a brief moment, she hated Thane—hated how vulnerable he made her feel. Why did she always fall to pieces around him?

For the first time, a sorrowful thrumming seemed to escape him, the invisible barriers that he had erected around himself crumbling. He started to take a step forward but stopped mid motion and seemed to fold back in on himself, settling into a reptilian stillness that was almost unnatural. "There is no need to apologize, Shepard. I understand your reasoning. No harm is done."

Shepard wanted to say so many things. It seemed unfair to her, to him, to let silence reign. She, perhaps wrongfully, thought of the times that she had reached out to Kaidan for support—after Virmire, after the rachni, after the countless morally ambiguous decisions she had to make, on Horizon... Each time he had neatly avoided her, stepping aside to let her founder alone. It wasn't that he was a bad person. She knew that Kaidan was a good, honorable man. But he was far too unemotionally available to hold her up in her times of need.

Thane had done the opposite.

Even when she did not seek him out, he had been a silent presence of comfort and assurance. His words soothed her anxiety, made her feel that—even if she had not made the right decision—he would still stand by her. It was what friends did for each other. It was what...

She wanted to tell Thane how much his support had meant to her, but her language was dead, and all she could do was stare at him with helpless eyes that she knew conveyed nothing.

Finally, after another moment where only the hum of machines sounded, he reached over and started the lift again, getting off on the next floor without another word.

She continued to the loft, stumbling out of the elevator in a blind haze and collapsing on her bed, curling on her side and hugging her knees to her chest.

How was it that she could save so many people but lose herself?

* * *

**A/N:** ANGST, ANGST, ANGST. I am torn between the two versions of my next chapter. On one hand, I am tired of writing sad stuff, and I just want these two crazy kids to be friends again. On the other hand, I see a suitable period of brooding to be quite realistic. Since I'm still without a beta and, in essence, flying blind, I wanted to know what you lovely people think. I've a mind to sort of hybridize the two-at least that's how the next chapter goes right now. Comments? Suggestions?


	12. Thou My Dearest Friend

It wasn't that Thane was avoiding her. It was more that he just stopped showing up whenever Shepard had a moment of down time. She realized that he must have kept close tabs on her—she had come to expect him to pop up in the mess hall, in the armory, in one of the observatories, wherever she was after she had decided to call it a night. But now, it seemed that her evenings had a peculiar Thane-shaped hole in them. More than once Shepard had to stop herself from seeking him out as she usually did to share their habitual conversation and jokes over tea. It hurt more precisely because she knew what she was missing out on.

She supposed he was giving her some space. She appreciated his withdrawal—he had, after all, given her exactly what she wanted. But, she... well, she missed him.

It was unfortunate that a rejection of Thane's advances would also mean an end to their close friendship. But, she couldn't blame him. If their positions had been reversed, she probably would have jettisoned herself out of an airlock by now.

And, she doubted she was entirely innocent in the matter. Her mind played out the scene in the armory repeatedly for her, and she knew she hadn't exactly been giving off friends-only vibes. And, of course, she still wasn't sure if she had made the right decision. Part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind—they were all probably going to die anyway—and march into Life Support to plant a kiss right on those perfect drell lips. But the other, cautionary part warned her of the very real potential for more loss. It was hard to convince her head that pursuing a dying man was a practical thing to do.

And, as she often did, her thoughts turned to Kaidan. She was not someone who could easily move on to another—once she gave her heart, she intended it to be for the long haul. Her therapists always had a field day when it came to her inability to let relationships go. She, honestly, didn't think it was that odd—what person in her right mind could just toss people aside, throw away a person who had contributed to her memories, experiences, and helped shape who she was? It was one of the many reasons this new... development with Thane caused her such consternation, for the only way to truly pursue him would be to let Kaidan go, and that was not something she was willing to do. It was just not like her to feel this way for two men at the same time, and it made her feel incredibly uncomfortable with herself. She wasn't sure that she liked the person that she had become; she felt fickle and flighty in her affections, and it made her hate herself. She was sure that she wasn't like this two years ago. And it made her worry—what else had changed?

But, regardless of the awkwardness and anxiety she felt for the whole messy situation, she still had a job to do. For the past few weeks, she had thrown herself into her work with more enthusiasm than she thought possible. Garrus had remarked on how hard she was pushing herself, but she shrugged it off. These things needed to get done. They weren't exactly working with all the time in the world.

As she stood in front of the galaxy map, plotting out their next coordinates, she couldn't deny the fact that even as she was enjoying herself (nothing like slaughtering slavers and mercs to brighten a girl's day), she was using these assignments to stop her from thinking on one particular assassin...

Her thought process had wandered along the path that suggested work would be a way to avoid thinking on anything... unpleasant. If she busied herself every waking moment, she wouldn't have time to brood. And, honestly, she was sick of how mopey she had been.

So, if her evenings were taken with work and she tired herself out enough that she slept dreamlessly through the night, then she was fine with that. It was a tactic that her therapist—both after Mindoir and Akuze—had absolutely hated. Shepard, however, was quite satisfied with avoidance and burying problems, especially since it was hardly productive to dwell right now, when she had an entire galaxy to save. There was always time to bitch and complain _after_ the Collectors stopped abducting innocent colonists and the Reapers were no longer a threat. She never wanted to have to explain to an orphan why her own emotional problems had prevented her from saving parents, siblings, friends. She didn't want to create another broken copy of herself.

But, even after working all of this out in her head, she still jumped when that all too familiar gravelly voice sounded behind her. "Commander."

She turned on her heel to face the drell—he was impassive as always. "Hey, Krios. Need something?"

"Yes." He clasped his hands behind his back. "I would like to request permission to join you on your next excursion."

"Any particular reason why?"

"I believe I can be of service. I have not had the chance to illustrate such, as of late."

Shepard flicked her eyes down to the datapad in her hand. Thane hadn't had a chance to stretch his legs since that fateful night in the armory—she hadn't wanted him to distract her on a mission. But, it was hardly fair, as he was subtly reminding her now. "We'll be taking out a group of asari smugglers. Expect heavy resistance."

"I will not fail you." It was only because of how much time they had spent together that she detected the slight challenge in his voice.

She caught his eyes, held them for as long as she could. "I know."

He nodded once and favored her with a small smile before turning away.

Shepard watched him go—the slight rustle of his leathers barely registered over the hum of the computers on the CIC deck.

"How long are you going to let this go on?" Garrus shot her an exasperated look and pushed himself away from the console he'd been leaning on.

Shepard narrowed her eyes at him, and bent over the map to study it far closer than she needed to. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, Vakarian."

"Oh really?" Garrus' mandibles flared with amusement as he ascended the steps to stand behind her. "You must be even denser than I thought."

Shepard swung around, forcing Garrus to take a step backward. It placed him right at eye level, and she relished being able to look straight at him instead of having to crane her neck upward. "I am not having this conversation with you right now." She leaned forward, cutting off his smart reply and hissing her words through clenched teeth. "Drop. It."

If Garrus was even remotely affected by Shepard, he did not show it. It was one of the disadvantages of serving with someone she had been friends with for so long—there was a distinct lack of healthy fear. "Whatever, human." Garrus shrugged—a gesture he had surely picked up from her. "When you're done over preparing for this next mission, come find me in the main battery."

He turned away, and Shepard couldn't help hurling one last sentence at his retreating back. "Sure you won't be too busy with your _calibrations_?"

Garrus only waved a gesture over his head that surely meant something insulting.

She didn't intend on following up with Garrus, but after she had finished mapping out the next coordinates, her feet seemed to naturally take her there, and—much to her surprise—instead of ending up in her cabin or at least the mess hall, she found herself in front of the doors to the main battery. Her unconscious made uncanny sense at times. So many people had abandoned her in her life—her parents, Anderson (while she could rationalize his apprehension at her ties to Cerberus, his lack of trust had definitely hurt), Kaidan, Liara... Garrus was one of the only constants. Chakwas had called her the crew's immovable center—Garrus was the closest Shepard had to that for herself. Even if she could not talk to him about anything and everything, it was always enough to just know that he was _there._ Sometimes she didn't need an ear. Sometimes she just needed a shoulder.

Garrus cocked his head back when the door opened to admit her. "Shepard. How have you been?"

Shepard blinked. She had been prepared for a volley of annoying, overly probing questions, but this one—so innocuous—caught her off guard. "Um. Fine?"

"Really?" He turned to face her, motioning for her to take her customary seat. "You haven't let up."

Shepard folded herself up on the crate, crossing her legs under her. "What do you mean?"

Garrus folded his arms across his chest, one talon tapping his arm, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts. He was so much easier to read than Thane. "You know I never question you. It's not because I think you're infallible; it's because I know you always place the mission's interests first. And, part of doing that is placing your crew first—I know you'd never deliberately steer us wrong."

Shepard felt her eyebrows bunch together, and Garrus shook his head. "Look, I'm probably not even the best person to talk to you about this. I'm terrible at this sort of stuff. But, I knew you... before. And I was there on Horizon. So..."

She could feel his awkwardness slither across her skin. Her hands gripped her ankles. "Skip to the end?" She offered.

He gave her an uncertain grin. "All right then." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So... you and Kaidan." Garrus' shaky laugh at how her eyebrows shot up into her hair betrayed his trepidation more than anything else could have. "I know how much you two liked each other. I also know how he treated you on Horizon." Shepard's mind leaped to Garrus' snarled defense of her, and she smiled a little at the memory. "And, I'd have to be blind and deaf to _not_ notice how you and Thane... you know."

Her first thought was to get defensive. She didn't have to talk to him about this—she didn't have to talk to anyone about this. She didn't pry into her crew's business, and would appreciate it if they would return the favor. Both her relationship Kaidan and Thane were—obviously—no one's business but her own. She felt her mouth tighten into a thin line, and Garrus' mandibles flared in response, preparing for an outburst. But, as quickly as her anger flared, it dissipated. Without the inky eyes of Thane muddling her every thought, she could be quite reasonable.

Thus, instead of giving in to the anger, Shepard let out a sigh that deflated her whole body. "Damn, Garrus, you're worse at this stuff than I am."

Garrus threw his hands in the air. "I know; I'm awful. But, I also can't stand by and watch you screw yourself over. None of us can." He twitched his mandibles at her unspoken question. "Me, Tali, even some of the Cerberus crew..." He trailed off.

"And they picked you to be the ambassador?" Shepard grinned despite feeling like she might want to smack all of them at some point for conspiring against her.

Garrus sniffed, one talon itching his fringe absentmindedly. "And what's so wrong with me?"

"Nothing." She would never admit it, but Garrus—with his simple honesty and open eagerness to help—was probably the only person she would be willing to talk to. She knew she commanded the loyalty of her crew, but Garrus was one of the only ones she felt followed her out of more than just a sense of loyalty—he followed her because he cared for her. She owed it to him to listen.

Shepard hugged her knees to her chest. "So, what's your point, then?"

"My point? Uh, right." He cleared his throat. "So, we've all made peace with what's coming. Like I told you before, we're going to lose people. It's inevitable. But we're not worried about ourselves. We're worried about you. You always ensure that all of us are taken care of, but you don't stop to take care of yourself."

She blinked slowly, casting her gaze on the floor. This was... it was not a direction she thought the conversation would go in. "And how do you suggest I take care of myself?"

"Stop worrying so much about the future." Garrus sat down next to her. "It's not like you—to hesitate so much. Just go after what you want."

He made it seem so simple. Like it was obvious to just choose to abandon one person in favor of another. Like it was easy to ignore how her heart felt torn in two. Just because she was angry with Kaidan didn't mean that she had stopped caring for him. But, frustratingly, just because she cared for Kaidan didn't stop her from feeling dangerous levels of affection for Thane. "What if I don't know what I want?"

"I think you do, but you're too afraid to admit it to yourself." Garrus sounded agonizingly reasonable.

But, while she appreciated the special insight the turian seemed to think he had into her innermost desires, she did not share his perception. The only thing she really knew she wanted was for all of the awkwardness and unhappiness to stop. "What I really want is for things to just go back to normal."

Garrus grinned at her and nudged her in the side with an elbow. "So do that."

She elbowed him back, annoyed at how he made her smile. "You make it sound so damn elementary, Vakarian. Don't you know that I'm completely incapable of making anything simple?"

"You routinely make things very simple, actually—just for everyone else around you. It's only when it comes to you having a single drop of emotional introspection in that soft skull of yours that you screw things up. You're just an idiot when it comes to _you_, Shepard."

She scoffed at him, crossing her arms. "Gee, thanks. You're a real pal."

He itched the side of his face—they both knew the pain of healing scars—and gave her a lopsided grin. "Anytime."

She traced a scar of her own up her arm, digging into it a little to feel the familiar sting. "What if that's not what he wants?"

Garrus' grin faded, and his soft blue eyes sharpened as he became serious once again. "Have you tried asking him?"

_Why_ did he always zero in on exactly the most logical thing to do and expose her stupidity in not doing it? "Well... no."

He gave an eloquent shrug. "So maybe that should be your first step."

It suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know exactly who they were talking about. Who should she talk to? Kaidan? Thane? Both? She had the sneaking suspicion that he had deliberately muddied the subject of their conversation. "You know, you're not as bad at this as I thought you were."

Garrus looked far too pleased with himself. "Yeah, this is actually surprisingly easy. Maybe I should have been a psychiatrist?"

She let out a soft laugh, picturing Garrus with a notepad in hand while she lay back on a couch and told him all about her mother. "Don't push it." With a sigh, Shepard leaned on his shoulder, and Garrus put an easy arm around her.

He leaned his pointy chin on top of her head, and she felt the deep sigh he heaved ruffle her hair. "Just be happy, Shepard. We each owe that to ourselves before the end."

Now, of course, she had only to decide what exactly it was that made her happy. Simple, right?

* * *

**A/N:** I am absolutely thrilled to announce that the wonderfully talented Dreamer In Silico has agreed to beta this story. She's already made this chapter a million times better than the original, and I cannot wait to work with her on future chapters. She is not only a fantastic editor, she also has a beautiful command of language, and you should definitely read her stories as well.


	13. Haunted Me Like a Passion

Shepard felt Thane's biotics slide hot fingers of electricity over her skin before she heard the warp field sizzle past her ear, felling the enemy before her. He fell into a crouch beside her, raising his rifle even as she peppered the field with SMG fire. He didn't need to tell her that he had sighted a smuggler—she lifted their unfortunate foe from where she knelt behind a crate, leaving the asari to helplessly flail her limbs in the air. The sharp crack of a shot that, without seeing, she knew found its target rippled down to her core, and she couldn't stop a gasp from fighting its way past her throat, as though it was not the trigger of the Viper that Thane caressed his thumb over, but...

His dark gaze caught hers, and she knew the fierce joy of the wild hunt in his eyes mirrored her own. "Shepard."

"Well, that's that." Kasumi shimmered into sight next to her, and Shepard cleared her throat, straightening. "Nice job, you two." A ghost of a smile tugged at the thief's lips. "A little more overt than I usually like, but I cannot deny its effectiveness."

Thane ran his hand down the stock of his rifle, his fingers running over well known paths before shouldering it—Shepard had noticed that the motions were almost a ritual for the drell. "It is something that one must get used to when working with the Commander." He turned a blank face to Kasumi, but Shepard could hear the hum of amusement that vibrated across the still battlefield. "Shepard does not believe in stealth."

"It's like using a nuclear device to kill ants." Kasumi offered, and Thane barely smothered a smile, smoothing down the front of his coat unnecessarily.

Shepard shrugged, holstering her weapon and tugging off her helmet, shaking loose her damp hair. "Hilarious. My sides are splitting."

She led the two back to the Kodiak while Kasumi offered a variety of witticisms, and Thane—for the most part—virtuously abstained.

It was as if she had finally allowed herself a pleasure that she had been denied for too long. Their closeness over a cup of tea had been mental, psychological—but here, on the battlefield, it was as though their blood sang together, their bodies moving as one instinct driven beast, thrilling in the chase, the kill, the victory. Together they were monsters to be feared.

Thane seemed to derive a savage joy from it as well—on the field he had fairly buzzed with excitement, his focus as taut as the string a bow. And now, it was like he had been unstrung—it was evident in his carriage, the way he folded himself into the Kodiak, the slow, sleepy blink of his eyelids, the heavy satiation that seemed to ooze from his pliant limbs.

She felt it too, and it took her a minute to connect it to another feeling, one that she had not experienced for far too long...

It was yet another wonderful way for her mind to torture itself on the subject of the assassin.

Once back on the Normandy, she peeled herself away from everyone else and busied herself with the very important task of making a cup of tea. No one but Thane had ever sought to bother her while she secured this crucial linchpin of her sanity, and while Thane was giving her a wide berth, she knew that she would be bothered by no one.

The curling steam felt deliciously warm on her skin, and she bent over the cup to breathe in the scent—evergreens. Her eyes automatically flicked up to the empty seat across from her, and she felt a flash of irritation at her own irrationality. Honestly, could she be any more pathetic? If only the galaxy knew that the fate of all depended on one extremely stupid woman.

The talk she had with Garrus, although she wouldn't admit it to him, affected her in many ways. She had sat in front of her computer console in her cabin for hours, staring at Kaidan's letter, wondering what she could say in reply. Far too many timid starts were impatiently deleted. Kaidan smiling at her from his holo on her desk did not make things any easier.

How could she put into words the anger, hurt, confusion, and ambiguity that had plagued her since she woke up on the Cerberus station? She had felt pulled along in some impossibly powerful riptide—as much as she tried keeping her head above water, all she could do to avoid drowning. Chakwas had called her their immovable center, but Shepard had lost hers on Horizon, and without him she floundered. Until, of course...

It had been one of those moments where she didn't know what she wanted to say until she just started typing. The message had poured from her fingertips in mere moments, and the words burned in her head, as clearly as though she had Thane's perfect memory.

It was short—simple: _I wish you were here. I miss you in more ways than I could possibly put into words. But I understand why you're not with me, even though the knowledge pains me. Despite what you believe, I am the same woman that you knew. I am more than the rumors' feeble attempt at definition. I thought that you knew that. I hope that time will allow you understand why I must stay this course._

She had composed and sent it off in less than five minutes. She didn't know if he would read it; she didn't care. The relief that she felt in responding far outweighed anything else at the moment. Perhaps Kaidan would see the error of his ways, understand that no two people will ever agree on every point—compromise and understanding is always crucial. But, perhaps he wouldn't. The thought still hurt, but for right now, Shepard believed that if he truly could not see past her temporary allegiance for the greater good, then perhaps he was not as wonderful as she thought he was. She was more than the Alliance. She was more than Cerberus. No organization had ever defined her, and she was saddened by the thought that he viewed such complex situations so simply.

Her tea was nearly drained—she didn't even remember drinking it during her solitary introspection. Her thoughts drifted once again to the empty chair across the table. If she could send the message off to Kaidan, who she had far more history with than Thane, then it stood to reason that she could mend things with the drell as well. Why not? She felt like she was on a roll.

She ruminated a bit on what she might say or do to express to Thane how much she valued his friendship, how much she needed his calming presence and thoughtful words. As with her letter to Kaidan, at first nothing seemed quite right, and she played over several scenarios in her head without ever feeling satisfied. She knew it was partly due to the fact that she regretted taking their relationship back to purely platonic—the memory of his lips hovering over hers disturbed her dreams far more than she wanted it to. But, she also knew that it was unfair to all parties involved if she were to allow her affection for Thane to run its course without truly and finally resolving her feelings for Kaidan. Perhaps it was simply another way to avoid a potentially hurtful situation, but even with Garrus' urge to be happy, she couldn't bring herself to take the relationship where Thane wanted it. A small voice suggested that she was afraid of it turning sour like everything else, afraid of ultimately losing him. But it was easy to ignore if she just focused on getting him back as her confidant.

So, enough of the endless cycle of her thoughts—it was getting her no where. Again, her body just seemed to take over, and before she knew it, she was refilling up her own cup and preparing another one for Thane. Tea helped create this—tea would also be the solution.

Shepard stepped lightly over to Thane's room. It was... amazing how free she felt once she had made the decision to seek him out again. He could be professional; she could do the same. It was a shame to throw away a perfectly good friendship just because of one little misunderstanding.

She reached out a finger to request entrance to Life Support when she heard his voice, not from his room, but from Port Observation. Cocking her head, she tried to catch what he was saying, but Kasumi's ringing laugh drowned out any other words that Thane might have said.

What could those two possibly be doing? Curiosity guided her footsteps over to the thief's quarters, and the door opened immediately to grant her entrance.

"Shep!" Kasumi sat with her knees against her chest, as usual, but she held out her arms in welcome. "Come in! Thane and I were just talking about you."

Thane shot her a startled look. "Si—ah... Shepard. Good evening." His face settled into a carefully blank expression—his eyes traveled over her as if he were memorizing her anew, and she knew that her cheeks were betraying her embarrassment.

For Shepard, honestly, felt quite awkward with two steaming cups of tea in her hands, especially since it was obvious that the two were having a grand time—her intrusion would only bring awkward silences and strained pauses. "I don't want to disturb you... I was just bringing Thane a cup and heard you in here."

"For me?" Thane rose from the sofa, taking one of the mugs with a slight incline of his head. "You are too kind, Shepard." She started to back out, gripped with a leaden fear that this was not going to be as simple as she thought, but Thane settled one easy hand between her shoulder blades; his fingers barely brushed her, but she could no more break away from it than a stasis field. "I will add my voice to Miss Goto's; you must join us."

So, she found herself guided over to the sofa, Thane planting her on a cushion between him and Kasumi. He cradled the mug with both of his hands, inhaling the fragrance, and Shepard watched him for a moment, wishing she could always remember how peaceful he looked with his half closed eyes and one long leg tucked underneath him. She broke her gaze away from him to look over at Kasumi. "So, you were talking about me?"

Kasumi grinned under her hood. "Oh, nothing bad, I assure you. Both of us are necessarily masters of stealth, and we were comparing stories of how decidedly unstealthy you are."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "That's not bad?"

"Of course not." Thane's smooth voice held a light tone of amusement. "It would only be bad if we were comparing the noise you make to... say... a herd of stampeding elcor."

She gave him an incredulous look, and Thane favored her with a teasing smirk. Was that really it? A cup of tea, and everything could be back to normal? Was this how normal adults handled situations? "Right. Very flattering."

"Actually, it was nothing as bad as that, Shep." Kasumi was having far too much fun with this. "We were actually comparing you to the sweet sounds of a krogan mating ritual."

Shepard snorted and shook her head. "Complete with bad poetry?"

Kasumi gave her a confused look—they had met Charr before her recruitment—but Thane let out a surprised laugh at the memory. "Ah, no krogan mating ritual would be complete without singing praises to the blue rose of Illium."

"Come on." She nudged Thane with one finger. "Let's hear the rest. I know you remember."

Thane shook his head, mumbling into his cup of tea. "I could not do it justice."

"Oh please?" Kasumi begged, clasping her hands together.

"A life without krogan poetry is a life not lived, Thane." Shepard added solemnly.

A treacherous smile betrayed Thane's amusement, no matter how much he tried covering it with one hand. "Very well. If you insist."

It turned out that Thane could be quite the performer, and Aas the evening progressed, Shepard found herself easing more and more into their old banter—Kasumi helped things quite a bit, filling any awkward silences with a clever observation of the crew, which would get them all started again. If Shepard were inclined, she could even believe that the night was through Kasumi's design. It would not be the first time that the thief had displayed far more social aptitude than her Commander would ever possess.

Hours later, she tried valiantly to stifle a yawn—it must be late. Thane had thrown an arm across the back of the sofa, and if she leaned her head back, she could feel his fingers just barely touch a few strands. "Are you tired, Shepard?" Thane murmured, his dark eyes searching her face.

"It's past the Commander's bed time." Kasumi laughed, and Shepard nodded.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to turn in. Thanks for inviting me in—I had fun." She actually _did_ have fun—surprisingly. It seemed too simple, too easy to have Thane back at her side. Everything good—ever since she was sixteen—had to be savagely fought for, but Thane slipped smoothly back into her life, as if he had never left. As if he belonged there.

"Come back soon!" Kasumi said as Shepard gathered the two tea mugs. "I always have more to talk about."

Thane stood as well, taking one of the cups from Shepard's hand. "Allow me to help you with the mugs, Shepard." He gave a slight bow to their hostess. "It has been a pleasure, Miss Goto."

A smirk tugged at her painted lips. "Likewise, Sere Krios."

Thane walked silently beside Shepard to the mess hall. She sneaked several sideways glances at him, wondering if he had any other motive other than what he professed—why she would need help carrying two mugs she had no idea.

They sat the glassware in the washer, and Thane turned to face her. "Shepard. How are you feeling?"

The question caught her off guard, and she blinked. Everyone was surprising her with innocuous questions as of late. "I'm... fine. You?"

"I am well." He clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at her, seemingly waiting for something.

She didn't know what it could be until it left her. "I missed you."

Many of Thane's smiles were actually smirks, half grins, never the real thing. It was like he purposely kept part of it back. But this... A genuine smile crept across his face, and she felt like the most important accomplishment of her life was being the one who put it there. "And I you. I am... happy to be your companion once again, Shepard."

"Drinking tea by myself was really lonely."

He brought his hands around to his front in order to absently rub his fused fingers together. "Indeed. I thought that I was content with spending time alone until I had you to share it with."

Her heart clenched in a painfully pleasant way. "Listen, I'm sorry about..."

But he took her hand in his suddenly, and her words died in her throat. "Do not be. There is nothing to apologize for. You are... the first friend I have made in ten years. I would do much to keep it that way." He enveloped her hand in both of his. "Whatever happens, thank you."

She couldn't stop her smile—it was the only outlet to the happiness that flooded her. "I'm not tired anymore. Want another cup of tea?"

He released her hand to fetch the kettle, a pleasing hum sounding low in his throat. "Nothing would please me more."

* * *

**A/N:** Ahh, friends again! I feel so much better now.

This chapter would not be in its present form without the wonderful guidance of Dreamer In Silico! I could not have found a better beta for this story. ^_^


	14. To Me More Dear for Thy Sake

Nearly a week had passed, and Shepard felt once again that she and Thane were as two peas in a pod. She tried illustrating the metaphor to him one time during dinner in the mess hall, splitting open a limp snow pea pod and pointing at the two minuscule beans with one chopstick. Thane had merely raised an eyeridge at her and hummed, shifting the contents of his plate around with his fork, commenting that he appreciated her attempt but that Gardner's food could hardly be poetic.

And, as she sat by herself in the mess hall, a cold bowl of rice hardening at her elbow as she poured over the latest intelligence from Miranda, she had to agree that—even though Gardner did the best he could with the ingredients supplied to him—the food wasn't the best. In fact, most of the crew was off amusing themselves on the Citadel, stuffing themselves full of non-ship food while the Normandy was docked for upgrades. Her girls—Kasumi, Tali, and Kelly, for Miranda and Samara were above such shenanigans—had tried to get Shepard to join them on a 'shopping trip', but she could not be more uninterested in a trip that would force her to parade in front of dressing rooms to the chorus of feminine squeals.

So she was alone—even Thane had left her, but he had a suitable excuse. Every time they docked at the Citadel he took the chance to see his son in person, and Shepard admired his earnest attempts at bringing his son back into his life. She wished she could be a fly on the wall during those conversations...

Kaidan had not messaged her back, and even though it had taken her months to reply to him, she did feel a little perturbed that he had not responded to her with a bit more punctuality. It was hardly fair, though. He deserved time just as she did, but she found herself just wishing that things would be settled between them, once and for all, even if it was not a happy ending. It would allow her to move on—she tired of being stuck in this liminal state.

"Is that datapad truly that enthralling?"

Shepard nearly jumped out of her skin, mustering up a truly frightening glare for a certain much-too-silent drell standing innocently with a couple of bags in his hand on the other side of the table. "God dammit, Thane!"

"Such blasphemy, Shepard." Thane said calmly, setting the bags on the table.

"A bell around your neck. It is in your future." She eyed the bags suspiciously—something smelled strangely delicious. "What's in there? Why are you here? I thought you were visiting Kolyat."

Thane blinked at her rapid questions as his translator caught up. "I had hoped to visit him, yes. But he is currently on his shift and will not be available for another six hours. And, as for what is in here..." He opened a bag and peered inside. "How do you feel about... Thai food? Officer Vakarian said you liked it." He began rummaging around in the bag. "I brought... pad Thai. Something called... curry. Rice. And... spring rolls? I think that is what they were called. The cashier had a fantastically thick accent."

"You brought me dinner?" Shepard half stood, trying to peek inside.

"Yes. I hope that is acceptable." He slid the bag over to her and opened up the other one, bringing out a couple of takeout boxes.

Shepard grinned at him, taking out a box of her own. He was truly too good to her. "Score one for you, Krios. Garrus is right. I love Thai food." She fished out a pair of chopsticks. "Thanks for this. It's sweet of you."

He unfolded the top of one of his boxes—the fact that he didn't bother with a plate was a true testament to his bachelorhood; there was no civilizing feminine touch there—and began spearing something that was decidedly not Thai food. "You do not think of yourself." He looked pointedly at the crusty rice in her bowl. "You deserve to enjoy a night off as much as the rest of us."

"What?" Shepard smiled. "My rice wasn't a good enough dinner?" She didn't bother with a plate either, preferring to dig in directly. They could both be savages.

Thane leaned forward, and Shepard had the sense that had his hands been not otherwise engaged, he would have slid them across the table. "I know you can take care of yourself. You make that incredibly obvious. But you do not have to live the life of an ascetic. You do not have to deny yourself."

He was right, of course. She denied herself far too much. Unspoken was the thought that she would have refused any sort of repetition of their night out that had soured things so much between them. So, he brought the date to her. It _was_ sweet, thoughtful. She amused herself with the mental image of Thane sounding out the foreign words while ordering her food, being so careful to ensure he got what he thought she would like. It was endearing.

And it was delicious. The noodles were wonderfully spicy, and Thane had remembered that she preferred tofu to meat. "Do you like it?" Thane asked tentatively after she had chewed and swallowed her first bite.

"It's perfect. Don't think I'll be able to eat this much food, though." She looked around at all of the other boxes.

"I did not think you could." Thane gestured with his fork to the remaining boxes. "You can refrigerate them for later consumption. You should have several days' worth of food."

"You think of everything, don't you?" She grinned at him, and he trilled with pleasure.

"I do try most earnestly to please you."

Shepard felt an irrational blush color her cheeks at his words and found herself studying her noodles most intently. He cleared his throat and busied himself with chewing. That was the advantage to eating with someone—food could always serve as a completely justifiable distraction.

Finally she felt her blush recede and hazarded a glance up at him. "So... what are you eating?"

"A pale imitation of drell cuisine." He impaled something purple and ominous looking with his fork and extended it over to her. "Would you like to try it?"

She made a face, and Thane's lips twitched in amusement. "I'll try yours if you try mine."

"I accept." Thane said instantly, and Shepard took the fork from his hand, using her other to get an acceptable sample of tofu and noodles for him to try.

He stared at her offering. "Ah. How do you hold these... chopsticks?"

Shepard snickered, balancing his fork on the edge of her takeout box. "Such a savvy traveler of the galaxy, and you've never used chopsticks before?" She shook her head at his long suffering look. "It's easy. Look at how I'm holding them. It's almost like a pencil, see?"

Thane examined her hand closely, clearly committing to memory how she cradled the utensils in her fingers. "Hmm. Let me try." He tried valiantly to take the chopsticks from her, but he ended up dropping the poor tofu to the table.

Thane murmured something she didn't catch, and Shepard smothered her laugh. "Open and close the chopsticks to pick it back up. Like this." She open and closed her thumb and forefinger.

The galaxy's most feared assassin flicked his eyes back and forth between his own hand and Shepard's, trying to mimic her movements. "I thought you had a perfect memory."

Thane kept trying to pick up the tofu, and kept failing as he would grip too hard or too soft, mangling the abused food. He let out a frustrated rumble. "Muscle memory is entirely different from eidetic memory, Shepard."

She let him try a few more times before she snatched the chopsticks from him, earning an annoyed glare from him. "I can do it." He apparently had quite the stubborn streak.

"I'm sure you can." She said patiently. "But I'm hungry, and I want my chopsticks back. I'll give you private lessons later." She fished out another bite for him. "But our deal still stands. Open up."

His eyes widened. "Open up?"

"Yes. Your mouth. Open it." She waved the chopsticks in front of him.

He favored her with a look that suggested she was more than slightly crazy, and finally parted his lips, allowing Shepard to slip the food into his mouth. She tried very hard to avoid thinking about how her heart skipped a beat when she pulled the sticks from his lips. It was very... unprofessional.

Thane chewed thoughtfully, looking very much as if he were trying extremely hard to like what was in his mouth at the moment. "Like it?"

"Mm." Thane blinked at her before his eyes grew large and glossy. "It's hot." He mumbled around the mouthful. "It's very hot."

"Spicy?" She offered.

He waved one frantic hand in front of his mouth, and Shepard burst out laughing, stumbling over to the tap to get Thane a glass of water. He snatched the glass from her and downed it, gasping for air. He let out a rapid string of drell that her translator could not pick up on, although she _did_ catch the word 'Arashu.' "How do you _eat_ that? I could feel it dissolve the inside of my mouth."

"Now who's being blasphemous?" Shepard smirked and sat back down, folding her arms across her chest.

He piously ignored her comment. "I know that humans have no concept of taste. And yet somehow you keep convincing me to partake."

"I'm just an extremely persuasive person."

Thane's eyelids fluttered. "Indeed you are." He nodded his head toward the fork still balancing on her takeout box. "You forget that you must also try my offering."

"I didn't forget." Truthfully, she had held the unreasonable hope that _he_ would somehow go against biology and forget. She picked up the fork. The small piece of food looked like a violet slug—all slimy and squishy. She took a deep breath and scrunched up her lips before shoving it in her mouth. Shepard was prepared for any manner of vomit-inducing tastes, but what she wasn't prepared for was... nothing. She chewed and swallowed it without ceremony, and Thane actually looked a bit disappointed—it looked as if he had _wanted_ her to be disgusted and was extremely put out that she wasn't flailing about as he had hoped.

"Nothing." She shrugged, taking devious pleasure in disappointing him. "It tastes like nothing. No wonder you couldn't handle the Thai food. Is all drell food that bland?"

"Bland?" Thane snatched his fork back from her and scooped up another bite. "You must not have as refined a palate as we do. It is quite flavorful."

She rolled her eyes. "A refined palate? You can be a pompous ass on just about anything, huh?"

"It is a gift." He said simply before taking another bite.

"So what exactly did I just eat?"

Thane flashed a dark grin at her. "Ignorance is bliss, Shepard."

They spent the remainder of the meal in easy conversation, and before she knew it, both of them had set their food aside in favor of speaking softly to each other without interruption. She loved hearing his voice. He could probably make just about anything—from a dictionary to a technical manual—sound absolutely enthralling, not to mention deliciously sexy. But his voice was more than just auditory candy for her (dark, sinfully rich chocolately candy), it was also quite soothing. He had an uncanny knack for easing her anxiety with just a few, well placed words, and it was a toss up as to whether it was his actual words that defused her or his soft, low voice. She thought that if she could just record him speaking to her, she could play it back at night and fall asleep listening to those rumbling words.

Thane leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes while reciting, at her request, as good a description as he could put into words of Kahje. "They say the cloud cover is permanent, but there are those of us who have been fortunate enough to catch a fleeting glimpse of glorious light from our star—it is a sight that one could not forget even if it were possible. It happened to me once—I stood on one of the tiny islands, buffeted by winds and sea spray, and for one ecstatic moment, a shaft of light pierced the roiling clouds, and the water was so _blue_ where the sun touched it. It was magnificent."

Shepard tried hard to picture it in her mind. She wished that he could take her there one day—she couldn't imagine touring Kahje at the side of anyone else. "How do you live without the sun? It would be difficult for me, but your people have evolved in the desert. How can you bear it?"

Thane opened his eyes slowly, regarding her with a strangely sad expression, folding his hands lightly before him. "One cannot always have what one desires. We have to live with what the gods grant us, and appreciate the small pleasures we are given."

Shepard frowned, unsatisfied with his answer. "That doesn't seem like a happy existence."

Thane closed his eyes for a brief moment, and when he opened them, they did not come back to her face. "It is enough."

"Don't you ever want more?"

His hands tightened on themselves, and he let out a low, unhappy sound that made her insides vibrate unpleasantly. "Of course."

"Then why not pursue it? It's not like it's out of your reach." Thane looked sharply at her, and she realized she had unwittingly gone too far. Shepard lowered her eyes, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and wished she could take back whatever had offended him.

Thane was quiet for a moment before standing abruptly. "We should put the food away. It would not do to have it spoil."

She was taken aback for a moment by his sudden movement, and she simply stared at him as he visibly brought himself back under control, his muscles relaxing one by one as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Thane's eyes focused on her hands for a moment before moving back up to her eyes. He gave her a small smile, apparently hoping to make her at ease. "I will take you to Kahje one day, and you will see why I could not truly leave, for even as she gives me pain, the pleasure is such that I could never abandon her."

Shepard nodded, letting the moment pass for Thane's sake, and put her half-empty container back in the bag, tying it closed. "Thanks again for doing this for me."

"It was my pleasure."

But Thane's mind was clearly still occupied by whatever troubled him, for after they cleared the food, they stood together uncertainly, a strained silence between them. Why did things have to suddenly get so awkward? Thane seemed as if he was hovering on the edge of saying something, but instead he simply shifted his weight from foot to foot, humming to himself. Shepard felt warm, too warm, and Thane—usually much cooler than she was—emanated an unusual amount of heat. His gaze fell from her eyes to her throat, and she wondered why—of all places—he would linger there.

She took a step back from him to lean against a cool wall, but he closed the extra distance she had added. "Shepard. I would... I would do much for you."

She raised startled eyes to his face, and he held her gaze a moment before dropping his eyes to the floor—a sure sign that he felt uneasy. "I mean to say..." He began, but EDI's crisp voice cut through the room.

"Commander, Samara has requested your presence at Starboard Observation."

Shepard stared at Thane for a long moment, wondering what thoughts were churning behind those dark eyes. "Acknowledged, EDI. Tell her I'm on my way."

"Affirmative. Logging you out, Shepard."

"I have to go." Shepard murmured, but she felt stuck to the wall, pinned there by his gaze.

"I know." He held her there for a few more moments before stepping to one side. "Have a pleasant night, Shepard. I have enjoyed your company, as always."

She whispered something back—she didn't even know what—and slipped off to the Justicar's room.

* * *

**A/N:** A silly chapter, but a fun one I hope! Thanks again to my wonderful beta-she makes the chapter go from so-so to freaking awesome (at least in my eyes). ^_^


	15. And So I Dare to Hope

It was a Saturday night, and the Normandy was docked at Omega. This would normally be the time for Shepard to let everyone loose for a bit of well-deserved R&R—they would go to Afterlife, get drunk, laugh at Kasumi hitting on a flustered Jacob, laugh at Shepard attempting to dance and failing miserably, and stumble back to the ship when the club closed in the wee hours of the morning.

And here she was, squeezing her ass back into that damned dress Kasumi made her wear, slipping her feet into the dreaded high heels, except she was not going to get a night off. No, she was going to play the bait for Samara's psycho serial killer daughter. The catch? No weapons. The threat? Having her soul sucked out through her eyeballs.

Fun times.

She squinted at herself in the bathroom mirror, mentally cursing the genius who decided to put florescent lighting in a girl's bathroom. She looked like a zombie. Her face was, as usual, clear of make up—she didn't have time for such frivolities—but she thought that perhaps, since she was _supposed_ to seduce someone, it wouldn't kill her to put a bit of lipstick on. Or maybe it would kill her. She smiled at her own joke and wished for once that she didn't think of the best lines while no one else was around.

So, she darkened her eyes with a bit of kohl and colored her lips with a daub of red. Shepard regarded her reflection—now she looked like a zombie dressed as a clown. Great.

But, it was the best she could do, so she headed down to Samara's quarters, thanking whatever deity was responsible for clearing the path of curious crew members. She was just about to palm open the door when she heard—of all things—Thane's voice sounding low and urgent.

Shepard hesitated a moment. He seemed to be angry, concerned. Samara's voice was calm and unruffled as always, but it was strange to hear Thane so... upset.

She tried listening for a moment, but the voices were low enough that they didn't rise above a murmur, and while she thought perhaps she ought to come back later, time was also of the essence if they hoped to catch Morinth before she moved on.

The door opened before her, and Thane shot her an alarmed glance, obviously strangling his sentence down in mid-word, clamping his mouth shut. Samara regarded her coolly. "Are you prepared, Commander?"

"As much as I'll ever be." Shepard looked over at Thane, who was eying her face with unrestrained curiosity. Shepard felt her cheeks burn—make up always made her feel like a painted whore; she never felt like herself. But she supposed it was appropriate. Tonight she wasn't exactly supposed to be herself.

"Everything all right, Thane?" Shepard asked, trying to get his attention away from her lips. She couldn't imagine what they could have been fighting about, but the code of the justicar was one that she was not entirely familiar with—how did it feel about assassins?

He blinked, the ridges at his neck darkening. "Ah... yes."

"Then shall we go?" Samara interjected, long strides taking her to Shepard's side, clearly wanting to get this entire mission over with. Shepard couldn't blame her.

She nodded and turned to leave, leaving Thane looking small next to the starry backdrop of the void.

* * *

Shepard had seen a lot of death in her time.

Most of it she had dealt out herself, never pausing to feel remorse for the mercenaries she killed, the soldiers who stood in her way. It was simply impossible—if she allowed one small drop of guilt to crack the dam, she would drown in her own self-loathing. It was why soldiers always eventually went behind a desk; there was only so much killing one could take before the blood would just not wash off.

But the look she saw on Morinth's face before Samara delivered the final blow, the look on Samara's face after she had killed her daughter... it was something that she knew would haunt her nightmares for quite some time.

Samara left Shepard for the solitude of her quarters as soon as they returned to the ship, and Shepard was relieved. It wasn't that she didn't want to help Samara through this—it was that she simply didn't know what to say. She _wanted_ to express her loathing for the entire situation, ask the justicar how she could possibly continue on after doing something so horrible. In other words, the conversation would be about Shepard and not Samara—a fact that she was sure Samara would not appreciate at the moment.

Thus, she trudged up to her quarters, eager to get her dress off and wash her face of all record of the night. She stank—the club had smelled of smoke, alcohol, sex, and desperation, and she felt it permeate every pore.

She turned the heat up, making the water nearly scalding in order to scrub her skin hard enough that her entire body was an angry shade of pink. It was only when she began seeing tiny pinpricks of blood along her arms where she had abraded her skin that she decided to stop.

She slipped on a loose pair of cotton trousers and a tank top, shivering slightly in the much cooler air of her living area as drops from her wet hair slipped down her spine. She stared at the fish swimming in their tank, and her quarters felt large and empty. All she could see was the devastation of Morinth's face after her mother had delivered the final blow—purple blood spreading out in an obscene halo across the floor, fingers twitching like dying butterflies.

And what would have been the alternative? For the mother to take the place of the daughter? Morinth had begged Shepard to be allowed to take her mother's place. Shepard wondered why situations in her life always seemed to be zero sum. Someone always had to die so someone else could live.

Her thoughts were consumed with darkness, so when EDI relayed Thane's request to be let in, Shepard gave her assent gladly. To hear anyone's voice besides her own echoing accusingly in her head was extremely welcome.

Thane stepped across the threshold, confident as always, descending the stairs in a few smooth steps. The man was like a dancer—even the simplest of moves could look like art with Thane's grace. "Good evening, Shepard. I have not come at an inconvenient time?"

Shepard looked down at herself, just remembering that she was dressed in her sleep attire. "No, not at all." She grabbed a sweater hanging on the back of her desk chair and shrugged it on, buttoning it up. He didn't need to know that she felt chilly. "Is there anything you need?"

Thane blinked slowly at her before stepping closer. He looked strangely beautiful in the blue light of the fish tank. "I came to ask the same of you."

She felt vulnerable in her pajamas in front of him, too small, too soft. "I'm fine." She slid away from him, moving to sit on the couch. "It actually sounded like _you_ weren't fine before I left. Is everything all right between you and Samara?"

Thane followed her and perched on the edge of the cushion, looking at any moment like he might spring up and fly away. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

Shepard smiled sheepishly at him. "Voices carry sometimes. You sounded angry."

He stared carefully at the fish tank. "It was nothing."

"So we're both going to be non-communicative this evening, huh?"

That earned a smile from him. "It appears that way."

Her smile faded. "I hope you would tell me if something was truly wrong."

He hesitated a moment, then scooted closer to her, sliding an arm along the back of the couch. "It was nothing."

"So you said." She leaned her head back against the couch, and Thane sneaked one finger out to brush against her damp hair.

He seemed uneasy with his boldness, but when Shepard didn't move—it felt nice, comforting—he appeared to gather whatever courage was necessary to reveal the disagreement he had shared with the asari. "I... I took issue with Samara's idea to use you as... bait. It seemed unnecessarily dangerous, and I believed there could be an alternative that would not call for such blatant interaction with an _Ardat- Yakshi_."

Shepard wasn't entirely sure how she felt about his objection. On one hand, she agreed that acting as bait was uncomfortable—to say the least—but on the other hand, she didn't exactly appreciate him going around her to voice his concerns. She should have been a part of their conversation. "And what was your suggestion?"

He rolled his shoulders, and she was amused by the thought that he was trying to approximate the human shrug. "I favor stealth above all else. I thought it would be easier to kill her from a distance. Samara believed that the club would offer an undesirable risk of civilian casualties. I replied that if we did it right, the chance that an innocent would suffer would be negligible. There is always the risk that someone other than your target will get hurt. It is a risk we must all take. I would have prayed, atoned, for any that fell that night that should have lived." He paused, blinking slowly. "Truthfully, I believe that Samara wanted one last interaction with her daughter. I understood her motivation, but I think it was unwise to act on, considering the circumstances."

Shepard straightened in her seat, letting out a sigh. "I appreciate your concern." She really did. She didn't enjoy the thought of using _anyone_ as bait; however, now she allowed her annoyance to color her voice. "But, I wish you would have come to me with your suggestions. I can't work at my best if my crew is going behind my back and having discussions regarding our missions that I'm not involved in. Perhaps we could have improved our approach. But now we'll never know because you didn't come to me."

The hand in his lap turned upward to show the inside of his slender wrist, and she knew without looking that the one on the back of the couch did the same. "You are upset with me. I understand this. But I also knew that you would not listen—when have you ever taken the subtle path? When have you ever mitigated the danger in order to grant your opponent a clean death that you merely watch from a scope? It is not your... style. But I hoped that if I were to get Samara on my side that you would listen to the both of us."

She did not appreciate his implication that she was some crazy woman who liked to get up close and personal with the people she killed, or the implication that she wouldn't listen to reason. "And of course, you know this because you have brought oh so many ideas to the table." She said sharply, hoping her sarcasm translated. Judging by the distressed rumble that escaped him, it did. "Don't assume that merely because we've spent the last few months together you suddenly know exactly how I will react. Your presumptions do not excuse usurping the chain of command."

Thane opened his mouth to say something more, but Shepard cut him off. "Are we clear, Krios?"

He snapped his mouth shut, his back stiffening, the hand along the couch withdrawing. "Affirmative, Commander." His angry hum made her skin prickle, and for a long moment, they both stared at each other—a contest of wills between two very stubborn people who just found the first thing they truly disagreed on.

She knew she was a sight when she was angry—green eyes flashing, mouth set in a hard line, energy coiled tightly just underneath her skin, constantly threatening to explode and kill the nearest unfortunate souls, but Thane was something completely different. His anger was apparent in the unnatural stillness of his body, the emptiness of his eyes, the dry hiss rasping across her skin. Their displays were antithetical—hers was all fire and heat, and his was empty and cold. It made her shiver.

But apparently Thane could not, or would not, hold onto it forever (unlike Shepard, who could carry her fury like an unending flame), for he broke first, let out a long, hissing breath. "I did not come here to quarrel with you. I apologize—my actions were well meant."

Shepard relaxed, relieved that his eyes once again held life and emotion in them, letting out a breath of her own before sliding over to him and laying one hand on his forearm. She had probably reacted with a bit more anger than she should have. He was her friend, and even if she was still his commander, she didn't want to lose the connection they shared. "I'm sorry too. You didn't deserve to be snapped at. I'm just... a bit on edge, I guess."

His hand covered her own, one finger trailing up hers. "You were not hurt physically. I should never have doubted that. It was weakness on my part—I feared for your safety, and I should have spoken to you about it. But you harbor a different pain. Will you tell me what troubles you?"

She felt herself purse her lips together, unwilling to really go into detail. The reason she had invited him in was that she hoped _not_ to talk about it. He sensed her hesitation and let out a soft, soothing croon—it surprisingly had the desired effect, for Shepard relaxed further. It helped that he sounded like an extremely large, content cat.

"I help a lot of my people with... personal problems." She began. "But it's always cathartic, you know? Always healing old wounds, reestablishing old ties. But this... it was destructive. It was..."

"Before you have saved those that we love. But now you destroyed." Thane offered.

Shepard closed her eyes. "It's not like Morinth didn't deserve it. We listened to her journal, you know. Not Morinth's." She clarified. "The girl she killed. Her name was Nef." She paused a moment, picturing the girl's clean, fresh face. "You never get used to civilians' deaths. But it was harder actually _knowing_ who she was. What she loved. What she aspired to do. She was still young enough that Omega hadn't corrupted her. She was still young enough that she could have escaped."

"What was she like?" Thane's voice was soft, sympathetic, and Shepard twined their fingers together—they fit together well, despite their differences.

"She was shy, artistic. It wasn't fair—she was too innocent and naïve. And Morinth knew. There was never any doubt that Nef would succumb." She sighed deeply. "And now her mother's left alone. I know what that's like. I wish we could have fixed it, stopped it, whatever."

"Are you speaking of Nef's mother? Or Samara?" He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "Or perhaps both?"

"Is it too much to ask that we get to save everyone?" She smiled up at him, but there was no humor in it. "But Morinth had to die. There was no question about that."

"There was no good in her, then?"

"Maybe at some point. But she was... she made my skin crawl. I was there in that stupid dress, and I could feel her eyes on my skin like dead fingers—cold and clammy. I knew, when I first laid eyes on her, I knew that she was a killer. Death came off of her in waves. I didn't know how people could stand within ten feet of her without running, screaming, in the opposite direction." Her voice took on a bitter tone. "Maybe us killers could just recognize each other."

"Perhaps. But I believe you have seen enough evil—true evil—that you see it and know it. There is only one response to that—the evil must be eliminated. Your first response is not death, as you said, you wish to save everyone. You kill as a last resort—there is no darkness inside of you save the guilt you harbor."

Shepard considered this for a moment. She liked the way he made her feel like she wasn't tainted and wrong, that perhaps she held a bit of light. She had so many people ready to believe she was the bad guy that it was nice to be with someone who thought she did some good. And, of course, he was right—she carried her guilt around like a damn banner. "After Morinth invited me up to her apartment—which was filled with strange, awful things, by the way. I mean, they weren't awful by themselves, but they were awful because they belonged to her. She made normal objects—a chess set, even—horrible." She looked down at their hands—her fingers looked pale against his dark green. "When the time came for her to... take me... her eyes were dark, but they weren't like... They were wrong. She asked me to kill for her. To do anything for her."

Even though he knew the outcome, Thane sounded worried. "There are not many who could resist. Was it difficult?"

"No, I... I would kill for my friends. Do anything for them. It's because I know they would do the same for me. We save each other, kill for each other, because we're family. She asked me like I was a slave, a thrall. I don't take orders from anyone."

She heard his smile. "No, you do not."

"After Samara came in, they fought, and it ended in a stalemate. Morinth begged me to choose her. Of course I couldn't. But when Samara killed her... I still felt wrong, you know? Like even that wasn't the right decision."

"Morinth killed innocents, wantonly and with pleasure. But, I do understand how you feel. It would be easier if our decisions were an obvious choice between pure good and pure evil. But, so often, it is determined in degrees—which is the greatest good?" He squeezed her hand. "You made the right decision, siha." Her eyes snapped up to his face, and he let out a soft trill, his throat turning a deep red, taking back his hand, albeit reluctantly. "What happened next?" The words tumbled out fast—he was obviously trying to cover for his blunder.

Death was always present. Strange words that she still didn't know the definition to were rare. "You didn't tell me what that means. Are you ever going to?"

Thane stared at her just long enough for her to blush, seemingly struggling with his decision. Finally, he relented; his answer was soft. "An angel." At her curious expression, he continued. "A warrior angel of the goddess Arashu. Fierce in wrath. A tenacious protector."

"That's a bit hyperbolic..." Shepard smiled through her embarrassment.

"I do not believe so." He leaned over to her; she could feel his breath warm on her skin. It smelled of evergreens. "Will you hear a confession?"

Shepard swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "Sure..."

"I looked up the meaning of your name. I found, to my surprise, that it already means protector." His voice lowered. "You have always been a siha. It simply took me awhile to see it."

"It's spelled differently." She murmured, turning her face away from his. His eyes were overwhelming.

"Mere technicalities." She could hear the smile in his voice.

She felt him shift in his seat, and when she looked back at him, he was alarmingly close, their bodies separated by a gap so small that it seemed unnatural for it to even exist. One tentative hand came up to hover over her neck, and she could feel rather than hear the vibrations rumbling his chest. His nearness was intoxicating, his eyes drawing her in, his scent making her body react in embarrassingly obvious ways. She leaned her head back, exposing more of her throat to him, and she heard his breath hitch. She didn't know what she wanted him to do; she didn't know what _she_ wanted to do—her senses were full of him. "Thane..."

He withdrew his hand in a sudden movement, widening the gap between them. "I forget myself. I am sorry."

"Thane," Shepard said again, trying to slow the beating of her heart. She couldn't keep doing this—couldn't keep wanting and denying. The question that had been squatting in the back of her mind since her conversation with Garrus fell out of her. "What do you want from me? From this?"

He folded his hands in his lap, squeezing them together in a way that she knew must be uncomfortable. "I... What I want is irrelevant. You have already made your thoughts clear on the subject. It is selfish of me to persist when I am unwelcome."

"Don't do that. Don't avoid the question."

He stared at his hands as if they were startlingly new, or he had never noticed how fascinating they looked. "I have struggled..." His voice was low, rushed. "I have come to care for you, Shepard... Siha. More than I should. I am sorry for this. I do not wish to be a burden to you. I know that you already care for another."

His last words took her by surprise. "Who do you mean?"

"His picture. It is always there." His eyes darted over to her desk before returning to her face. "Your heart looks to him. I serve only as a distraction."

His words cut her in ways that he couldn't have intended. For him to think of himself as only a temporary diversion... She had never meant to appear like she was toying with him. "You are not a distraction." She said firmly, causing him to blink rapidly. "You were never a distraction." She took a deep breath. "Kaidan... I wish I could tell you that there is nothing between us, but truthfully, I don't know where we stand."

If her confession bothered him, he did not show it. His eyes, full of tender regard, never wavered from her face. "I pity him. He holds the affections of a siha, and he is too blind to notice. I will not do that to you... I cannot. You do not trust me with your heart, and you believe this will end badly—you said such words before, and they have weighed on me heavily. You do not know how they have..." He trailed off for a moment, and seemed to shake himself out of something before continuing. "But I do want you to know that I trust you with mine. I would follow you anywhere, my siha."

"That's not fair to you..."

But he cut her off by closing the distance between them, cupping her cheek like he did in the armory, and her heart fluttered with the thought that he might try to kiss her as he did before. "I have thought for so long that my only purpose was to die for someone else, but you have shown me that I might, once again, live for someone else." He tucked a drying strand of hair behind her ear, and, to her disappointment, moved his hand away. "I do not deserve it. But the Goddess has seen fit to grant me this boon, and I will not turn it aside."

He gave her a small, almost shy smile, delicately touching the edge of her sleeve at her wrist. "You asked me what I desire. I desire only your happiness. If I can be the one to provide that happiness, even if it is only through my friendship, then I will be satisfied. But know that I will always harbor a deep affection for you."

His answer was a bit vague for her satisfaction. _She_ didn't even know what would make her happy—how could he? But, despite the fact that she'd heard far too many insincere people say the same thing, she felt that Thane actually meant it. So, what could she say to that? How does one respond to such selfless emotion? She didn't feel right, leaving him pining after her while she sorted out her head and heart. Perhaps he was just an infinitely more patient man—she would not be okay with how insufferably indecisive she had been. "I... I need..."

"Time?" Thane smiled at her, taking her hand in his for a brief moment before letting it go again. "My siha is a cautious woman. She is one that will not make decisions lightly. She is one who has such trouble taking a new path. Yet, her loyalty and affection is such that it will never waver once it is earned. I will wait. I will earn it."

A cautious woman... it was a nice way of saying that she was straddling the fence like it was going out of style. She wasn't like this on the battlefield—things came easily to her out there. She had an almost preternatural sense of what she should do. Her decisions seemed laid out for her in their infinite combinations, and even with all the choices, her path was always clear. Afterward, of course, she agonized, but in the heat of the moment, she never hesitated. But, with Kaidan, and now, with poor Thane, the sense of urgency wasn't attached to her actions. She had time to ruminate, to pick at her choices until the end of time. Except, she didn't have all the time in the world. It was an illusion, and she couldn't drag this out forever.

Her therapists had analyzed this to death—their consensus was that it had stemmed from losing her family, as with everything else in her life (what if things went wrong, they had imagined her thinking, what if she never had a chance to apologize, to mend... it was better, then, to put off the decision until it was _perfect_). She wanted one thing that she did to not be traced back to that. It was like she really did die at sixteen, and this new, fractured person took her place.

He stood, and she immediately missed his warmth. "Until then, siha, I remain your steadfast friend. Rest your troubled mind. I will see you for tea and toast, no doubt, in the morning."

And with that, he was gone. Shepard stared at the blank spot where Thane had been sitting. Sure, she wasn't preoccupied with visions of dead asari anymore, but she had something else in mind that—while certainly more pleasant—was equally disturbing.

She was never going to get to sleep.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay in this one, but it's quite long, so I hope that makes up for it. If you think that this is a good chapter, then you have my beta to thank for it. I added and rewrote things all at her behest, and it's just so much better now. ^_^


	16. The Anchor of My Purest Thoughts

The Reaper shuddered around her, and Shepard wavered on her feet, struggling to keep her stance. The geth lay face down at her feet, surrounded by the broken bodies of dozens of husks. It was clearly not going anywhere anytime soon, and if she did not make a decision within the next couple of minutes, it would not move again ever. She could still hear the whine of the geth's bullet passing by her ear, taking down the husk that had shambled up behind her. The shot had taken them all by surprise—neither Garrus nor Thane, both men she trusted to watch her back, had noticed the danger behind her, and she owed her safety instead to a geth.

A _geth_.

It had spoken, said her name, and that—coupled with its strange, savior-like tendencies—made her want to lug the thing back with her. If it spoke, if she could actually communicate with one…

She had been appalled by the attack on Eden Prime like the rest of her race. She had slaughtered thousands of these machines without a second thought. Battles with the geth were the only ones that she didn't lose sleep over—they were only machines, after all. They had no emotions, no family, no regrets. But now this one had spoken to her. It forced her to reevaluate what she thought of them. Perhaps she had oversimplified them. Perhaps they had more to offer.

"Shepard, what are you doing?" Garrus' sharp words cut through her thoughts. He flared his mandibles at her—a sure sign of his irritation. "Joker can't wait around for us forever."

"I know." She snapped at him and immediately felt bad. "This geth is different." She said in a softer tone. "I think we should take it with us."

Garrus shook his head. "Leave it. It's too dangerous. What if it reactivates? EDI would be hacked, and we'd find ourselves at the mercy of a hostile AI. We can't risk bringing it aboard the Normandy."

"It did speak." Thane's quiet voice sounded behind her, and she turned slightly to look at him—he was nudging the geth with one boot. "And it provided sniper cover. It should be questioned, if possible."

"Take it back _and_ reactivate it?" Garrus eyed Thane like he had grown a second head. "That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

Shepard pursed her lips. "We don't have to necessarily reactivate it. Not immediately, anyway. I can have Tali and EDI make sure it's secure if we decided to do so—if they can't guarantee it, then we don't have to do anything. It can just sit in storage until someone can safely study it."

The Reaper groaned, and the scream of straining metal hurt her ears. She couldn't stand around debating this any longer. "Grab it. We're taking it with us."

Thane nodded his acknowledgment and bent down to grasp its legs, and Garrus only heaved an exasperated sigh before hooking his arms under the geth's shoulders.

* * *

Unfortunately, a lot of her other crew members shared Garrus' opinion. Shepard hadn't expected Miranda to be too thrilled about the decision to bring the geth aboard, but she also hadn't expected her response to be quite so mercenary. Jacob—such a predictable soldier—had failed to surprise her with his cut and dry answer to her problem. But Shepard was not satisfied with either answer.

She, of course, leaned toward activating it. But Miranda's comment had given her pause—did she want to do that because it was truly the right decision, or did she just want to satisfy her own curiosity? It was an uncomfortable situation.

The energy field shimmered before her as Shepard considered the geth behind it. Geth were the personification of evil in the galaxy now—the symbol of the horrors that lurked out in the Traverse and beyond, and even now, cold and silent, it held a heavy menace that made the little hairs stand up along the back of her neck.

And, of course, it wasn't just that it was a geth. It was the fact that it had welded—for some reason—part of her armor to its chest. So, not only had it referred to her by name, it had also salvaged something that had belonged to her and fastened it to itself. It was unnerving, to say the least. What could it have possibly wanted with the armor? Was it just a convenient field repair, as Miranda had suggested? Or was there something more sinister involved?

As much as she tried to avoid jumping to a negative conclusion, she had just been too hardwired over the years to fear and distrust these things. _Things_. She caught herself thinking of it in terms of… it, and felt a bit ashamed. Obviously it—he?—had some sort of awareness, and she felt that her language was degrading. She crossed her arms and heaved a sigh. She wasn't going to make a decision here—not with that soldier she had assigned to watch over it lurking in the corner. She couldn't think with others' eyes upon her.

Thus, she left the geth in the containment field, assured by EDI and Tali that it was secure for now. Poor Tali. She had been silent for a full three minutes after Shepard told her to secure a geth in the AI Core, but to Tali's credit, she had completed her duty with only a tired "I hope you know what you're doing, Shepard."

Shepard hoped she knew what she was doing, too.

The med-bay doors opened to a small crowd milling around in the mess hall—Garrus, Mordin, and Jacob were arguing quite loudly over the fate of the geth (with Mordin effectively steamrolling everyone), and Thane was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms loosely folded over his chest. Shepard could see his mind filing every comment perfectly away; the others didn't even seem to notice he was there. She walked over to lean next to him; he glanced at her, but said nothing, clearly enthralled by the argument before him. She'd have to pick his brain later to see if she had missed any truly juicy bits.

"I don't care what EDI says, it's just not a good idea!" Garrus' mandibles flared wide as each word sounded a bit louder.

Mordin twirled a silver wrapped protein bar in his hands, looking amused and exasperated at the same time. Shepard could practically taste his arrogance—he'd come down from the Ivory Tower to banter with the commoners. It wasn't helping either of his opponents accept his argument. "Can understand that soldiers see only immediate risk. Takes a scientist to see the ultimate value. Geth should be activated—unprecedented opportunity."

"Takes a scientist?" Jacob spat. "You guys create the messes, and then it's up to us to clean it up for you." He had been angry before, when Shepard had discussed this with him and Miranda. Apparently his attempt to cool down in the mess had not been successful.

Mordin sniffed. "Hardly. Must remind you that—"

"No." Garrus said firmly. "No. I've fought rogue VI before, and _that_ was a pain in the ass. A rogue _AI_ is going to be much, much worse. Shepard will agree with me."

She blinked at being suddenly drawn into the conversation—she hadn't even realized that he knew she was there. But apparently he had, as well as assumed that she would agree with him. "I remember that, sure, Garrus. And it _was_ a pain in the ass. But I trust EDI."

"Thank you, Commander." EDI's prim voice suddenly sounded in the room, and Jacob and Garrus looked around sheepishly.

"As Professor Solus pointed out, sometimes we must risk in order to gain." Thane quietly added, earning scathing glares from Jacob and Garrus and a triumphant smirk from Mordin.

"Precisely. Must study, observe our enemy in order to truly beat them." He launched into a speech that the men had obviously heard before, for Jacob rolled his eyes and Garrus let out a few pained clicks.

"Look," Garrus cut him off. "We already know what you think." He turned to Shepard. "But it really only matters what _you_ think. Have you decided what to do?"

Shepard sighed. "Not yet. It's not something I want to just jump into—I want to really think about it, and I appreciate you guys offering your opinions. But I do think that Mordin has a point, and Thane's right—sometimes we have to take risks."

Garrus let out a defeated sigh and shook his head, but Jacob swelled with fury. "Well, of course you agree with the _assassin_." The words left Jacob's mouth and immediately a look of horror crossed his face. Shepard didn't know if it was because he realized his mistake or if her visage of wrath was that instantaneous.

Everyone was silent for a few moments. Garrus shuffled his feet while Mordin crinkled his wrapper, and Thane was as still as a statue. Jacob looked like he was going to be sick, and Shepard could bet it had something to do with the death ray shooting out of her eyes. How _dare_ he suggest that her friendship with Thane would bias her in any way. Jacob would never have said the same about Garrus, and Shepard was furious with the implication that the Cerberus man was making.

"That... was out of line." Jacob said, breaking her gaze to study the ground at his feet. "I apologize, Commander. I'll just... I'll be going now."

"You do that." Shepard felt a pulse of grim satisfaction watching the operative slink out of the mess hall.

"Damn Shepard." Garrus laughed weakly. "I thought only my father had perfected that look." He nodded at Thane before leaving, who was still leaning oh so innocently against the counter. "Watch yourself with this one, Thane." Shepard shot a glare at Garrus' back for his parting remark. Interesting how everyone was acting like Shepard and Thane were... well, Shepard and Thane.

Shepard turned to Mordin, who was unperturbed by the events occurring around him, instead ripping into his protein bar with gusto. "Not gonna leave too?"

"Leave? Why? Came here not to argue with dimwitted soldiers but to replenish energy. Working on samples, vision started to blur around edges." He took a deep breath, chewing quickly. "Need protein."

He gave Shepard and Thane a long look, and she tensed—whatever he was thinking about saying would not be good. She could feel it in her bones. "Sent you both reading materials weeks ago. Diagrams, videos. Thane opened them some time ago—got read receipt—but you have not."

Shepard shot Thane a sharp look, who was suddenly studying his hands with fierce intensity. "I haven't had the time." She said slowly.

Mordin waved his hands around. "No matter. Do suggest you look them over soon, Shepard. Best to be prepared." Mordin polished off his bar and threw the wrapper in the waste bin. "Good evening, Thane, Commander."

"So." Shepard said as soon as the elevator doors closed behind Mordin. "Interesting reading?"

Thane mumbled something, and Shepard, thrilled at the thought of—for once—having the upper hand, pursued it with relish. "What was that? Didn't quite get it. Could you say it a bit louder?"

Thane only gave her a long suffering look, and Shepard was suddenly plagued with the thought that he watched it, yes, and found it _disgusting_. She had no idea what Mordin sent the drell, but _videos_... it could have been porn. It could have been disgusting porn. It could have been beautiful porn, and Thane could have still found it revolting. She suddenly felt very unprepared. How did drell have sex? Was it completely different? Of course it was—it had to be. Why hadn't she watched those videos Mordin sent her? At least looked at a diagram? A _picture_. What if it were _very_ different, and Thane, far from being turned on or at least intrigued, was made nauseous?

Wait. That was stupid. Thane still acted like he wanted her, and Mordin said Thane had opened the message a while ago. But was that normal? Was it normal for a drell to be attracted to her? What if he were some sort of freak...

"Siha?" Thane's tentative voice broke her out of her thoughts, and she cast him a wild glance.

"What? Nothing. I'm thinking about nothing." Smooth. Really smooth. "Anyway, we have a geth in the AI Core." She had the gift of a silver tongue, obviously.

Thane blinked slowly at her. "So I have heard."

So he had confessed that he had feelings for her. She had practically done the same thing. She should feel crippling awkwardness any time she was around him, but strangely, she didn't. Unless, of course, she was thinking about the fine points of drell and human sex. The obvious tension that had simmered beneath the surface of every interaction they had was muted now that things had been put out in the open. He knew she wasn't ready to make a move; she knew that their feelings were mutual and that he would be patient with her. It was amazing how much better everything was with a tiny bit of communication.

It was strange. For so long she had been vehemently denying that she even found Thane attractive, but now that she had allowed herself to think, even for a moment, that there was the slightest possibility of _acting_ on those suppressed desires, it was as if the floodgates had been opened. Now, she couldn't stop staring at him, eyes following those exotic stripes, wondering where they trailed to. The closer he was, the faster her heart beat, and—damn him—he seemed to know it. Thane seemed to almost make a game out of sidling up behind her and murmuring a completely innocent greeting, pretending to be totally unaware of the effect his nearness and low, deep voice had on her. He had held on to his pet name for her, and she found she didn't mind it at all. The whole situation would be infuriating if it weren't so...

"How does our guest fare?"

"Unconscious as ever." She looked up at him, grateful that he interrupted the circles her mind was running in.

Thane leaned over, tracing the N7 symbol on her shirt sleeve with one finger. She _would_ have to have worn this old shirt today. "The geth had this symbol on its body. What does it mean?"

"Noticed that, did you? It's Alliance issue. More specifically, it's Alliance issue for _me_." Thane narrowed his eyes, and she continued. "The geth has a piece of my old armor. I haven't seen it since the first Normandy exploded around me." She rubbed her hands over her arms to try to smooth the goosebumps that formed there. It was entirely too creepy.

"Interesting." His frown said much more than that.

"Quite."

They were both quiet for a moment, the hum of the Normandy filling the silence. "So everyone thinks I'm nuts for even bringing it aboard. Jacob and Garrus, as you know, think we should blast it out of the nearest airlock, and Miranda, practical as ever, thinks we should cash in on the Cerberus standing bounty for an intact geth." She picked at the edge of one fingernail.

"And what do you think? You said you had not made a decision yet." He pushed himself away from the counter to obtain what seemed to be his original reason for coming to the mess—tea.

She sighed, turning to get two cups down from the cupboard. "All we know about the geth, really, come from the quarians. I'm not saying that they're deliberately twisting the truth, but in any war, either side proves to be an unreliable narrator." At his raised eye ridge, she hastened to clarify. "I'm not saying that the geth are secretly cuddly little kittens who just want hugs. I'm just saying that, if this geth can really communicate, it's a great opportunity to learn about them."

He clasped his hands behind his back while the kettle heated up, taking a contemplative posture. "And what, then, are your reservations?"

"Well… there are the obvious security risks. I don't want to expose my people to any more danger than they already have to endure." Her eyes darted over to him, trying to read some sort of opinion in his body language, but he was neutral as ever. She appreciated that he acted as a sounding board for her—the times when she had been allowed to bounce opinions off of him were always incredibly valuable—but she found that she wanted _his_ opinion. She cared about what he thought—more so now than ever. "What do you think?"

He rumbled low at her, rocking a bit back and forth on his heels. "It is a conundrum, siha. I see the merits of Operative Lawson and Taylor's opinions. I also understand the reservations of Officer Vakarian. But, I cannot deny my curiosity. As the professor said, this is an unprecedented opportunity."

"There is, of course," she added, getting two tea bags as the kettle began to whistle, "The small fact that we're the only people standing against the Reapers and total annihilation. Can we really risk ourselves to satisfy mere curiosity?" She frowned. "I admit, I hadn't even thought about it like that until Miranda said something along those same lines. Now I hear from you that your main motivation is curiosity as well, and I'm worried that maybe we're... maybe in this one instance we're just too much alike."

Thane cocked his head to one side and hummed for a moment before answering. "Consider—there are many battles that are not won through conventional means. There are times when we must explore different, unorthodox options. This geth spoke to you. It acted in a manner that suggested it wished to save you from physical harm. Can we, then, act on old assumptions that we have cultivated over the years?" He took the tea bags from her and set them in their respective cups, filling them with hot water.

Assumptions. Another word for prejudice. Tali would lose it if she heard them talk about a geth in such a way. "You're suggesting that it may want to help us?"

He poured the rest of the water down the drain, setting the kettle back in its place on the stove. "It is a possibility, however small. I know there is danger. But sometimes the safest route is not the best route." Thane slid her cup her to her, and she accepted it with a smile.

And, even though she should have been focusing all of her thoughts on the geth, she couldn't help thinking of Thane in that moment. He was not a safe route himself. He was an alien; he was dying. He represented loss and sorrow. But that wasn't all he could offer. If she wanted to, she could spend hours tallying all of the ways in which he could—directly or indirectly—hurt her, destroy her. But, as with this geth, sometimes the potential benefits could far outweigh the risks. And here she was, comparing a potential lover to a cold, calculating killing machine. Considering the subject, she didn't know if Thane would be flattered or offended. She wrapped her hands around her mug, relishing the warmth. It occurred to her that they had gone through their entire little tea ritual without a word of explanation. It was incredibly domestic, but more than that, the simple motions had helped her think—she had the impression that he did it on purpose to allow her to relax and order her thoughts.

She looked over at him—he was studying her intently during her silence. "You're terribly persuasive, you know..."

"Oh am I?" He smiled, letting loose a soft trill.

She flashed him a grin, putting one hand on her hip, drumming her fingers along its curve. "Or maybe I'm just too easy to sway."

He took a small step toward her, putting his mug on the counter, eyes lingering along the swell of her hip before returning to her face. "Not easy enough, siha."

His comment hit a little too close to home, and she averted her eyes, running her tongue nervously over her lips. She was forced to look back up at him when he settled an easy hand on her shoulder. "Do not trouble your mind. This is an easy decision to make—you have already decided, after all."

His hand was warm. "Oh really?" She brought her hand up to tentatively brush her fingers against his; the gesture was small—inconsequential, really—but she knew nothing would escape him, and she blushed at her own audacity, immediately feeling foolish for her own timidity.

His fingers captured her own, and once again, she marveled at the play of white against green. He took another step toward her, thumb moving in small circles on the back of her hand. "Of course. You humans are an inquisitive race; you cannot deny your nature. You will act on those desires."

She wished she knew exactly what he was talking about. The conversation had too many undertones for her to be comfortable. "Is that what you would do?"

"Yes." She knitted her eyebrows at his simple response, and a low laugh escaped him—he took pity on her and elaborated. "Activate the geth. EDI assures you it is safe, and you trust her. Question our guest and see what you may learn from it." He withdrew his hand and took a step back, retrieving his cup. "But of course, even if you should choose to follow the advice of… well, nearly everyone else on this ship, I will stand beside your decision, siha."

Shepard favored him with a smile. "Thanks for helping me work things out. I always feel so much better after I talk them out with you."

He gave her a small bow. "I do try to be useful to you."

"You're more than that, you're..." She bit her lip, body and mind pulling her in two different directions. Why couldn't they ever just agree on something?

He cocked his head at her, blinking those big dark eyes, and her heart ached with how wonderfully, simply _Thane_ that was. She lay her hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb along his rough scales. "Thanks for being... well, you."

And for the second time that day, she left the assassin speechless, gathering up her mug and taking it with her to the AI Core. The door closed behind her, and she left out a soft sigh, activating her omnitool. "EDI, prepare yourself. I'm waking it up."

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry again for another delay! I do try to update as close to weekly as I can, but life intrudes at the most annoying times. My beta, as always, helped tremendously with this chapter-she provided guidance when I was quite clearly foundering.

You may feel that this is starting to wrap up... because it is. There are a couple of chapters after this, and then we're done! It would be sad if I weren't ready to go on another story-this time playing in Thane's head. I do hope you join me for that one as well.


	17. Guide of My Heart, of All My Moral Being

And with one fell swoop, Shepard decided the fate of thousands of sentient beings.

It was something she did often. Many of her decisions affected the lives of those around her—she had released the rachni, saved the Council, left Ashley behind. In each instance, however, she had either given or taken life—it always held a finality that this, her newest decision, did not.

Legion had given her a choice: destroy the heretics or rewrite them to accept the geth's view on the Old Machines.

She hadn't been prepared for it. When he had first broached the subject with her, she had assumed that he and his people would achieve their consensus during the course of their battle through the ship, and—as should have happened—the fate of the heretics and geth would be determined through the actions of those who were qualified to make such a decision, which was certainly not Shepard.

Yet the choice had fallen to her.

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, hunching down in her seat on the shuttle back to the Normandy. The opinions of the geth had been a near split, and Shepard had been called upon to 'break the tie', as it were. Legion had cited the fact that she had fought the heretics as her qualification for making the decision, which she felt was a pale justification. She had brought Tali along for the mission—thinking that another squad mate with AI hacking abilities couldn't hurt—but the quarian was useless for what Shepard really needed: someone to discuss such an important decision with.

Shepard looked at her two companions in the Kodiak—Legion clicking and whirring as he regarded her (undoubtedly trying to process what her stiff body language represented) and Tali with her strange, softly-glowing eyes bouncing back and forth between Legion and her commander. Shepard wondered if Tali was offended—she hadn't bothered asking the quarian for her opinion on the matter once. But she knew what the answer would be: Shepard should destroy the base, kill the heretics. Each of her squad had biases, and each Shepard knew—perhaps even more than they knew themselves. The predilections could be strengths or weaknesses, depending on the situation, but in the case aboard the geth base, Tali's bias prevented her from seeing the problem objectively—it was a weakness.

So, of course, the question was, did _Shepard_ see the problem objectively?

The sick dread in the pit of her stomach answered the question for her. With each passing moment, the air aboard the shuttle became more oppressive, the gazes of her team more intrusive. She _had_ to get out.

The shuttle docked with the Normandy, and Shepard immediately fled, shedding her armor and ordering Kelly to take care of it, not bothering to answer Miranda's queries or Garrus's shocked concern. She distantly knew that she should perhaps be presenting a more collected front for her crew, but all she could think about was what she had just done. An illusion of restraint could be presented when she didn't feel like screaming her hatred for the inherent unfairness of the galaxy at the top of her lungs.

The elevator doors hushed closed, and she was again alone with only her thoughts to plague her. Her finger automatically punched the button for the crew deck, and even as she thought of how her stomach could not take any food down, though she knew that after a mission she _should_ eat (even the thought made her want to vomit), she knew that her ultimate destination was Life Support.

_Thane_.

Thane would know what to do, what to say. He would know how to make her not hate herself. She realized with a shock that he was necessary to her, as essential as air, as required as food or water. The thought, perhaps, should have frightened her, but as the lift doors opened and long strides took her quickly to his door, all she could think about was being with him.

The lock was undone, as if he had been anticipating her arrival, and she walked in without ceremony. Thane stood near his gun display with his back to her, SMG in hand as he rubbed at a faint scratch along its barrel. His head jerked around to look at her as she entered, dark eyes widening with concern. She didn't know if she was that transparent or if he had just learned to read her so well in the past few months. "Siha," he put the gun back on its shelf and turned to her. "What can I—"

"I needed you." The words blurted out before she had a chance to really think about them, but she didn't care. It was true.

He took two quick steps to her and gathered her hands in his. "I am here for you now. What happened? Is everyone all right? Was someone injured?"

"Nothing like that." She stared at their interlocked hands, squeezing them softly, reassuring herself that he was there. "We were supposed to destroy the station. That was the original plan." She took a deep breath. "But there was a development. Legion suddenly had two options: we could stick to what we had decided to do, or we could use the virus to rewrite the heretics and re-purpose them for our use—they would stop helping the Reapers and join Legion's side." Shepard shook her head, withdrawing her hands to cross her arms over her chest. "Re-purpose. So clinical."

Thane hummed softly, the vibrations dancing along her skin. "Is that what Legion decided to do?"

"Well, that's the problem. _I_ decided what to do." She could feel her frown etch deeply into her skin. "Legion and the other geth couldn't decide. Tali was too biased to offer an objective opinion. It fell to me." She stared at his feet. "I _needed_ you there, Thane. I needed your advice."

She felt Thane's calloused hands grip her upper arms, and for one wild moment, Shepard wanted to throw herself into his embrace, despite the fact that she was probably pretty sticky and sweaty from the mission. She had the irrational need to be nestled in his arms. "I am sorry, siha."

"Wasn't your fault." She said absently, staring at that one, exposed patch of flesh on his chest. "Wasn't your decision to stay behind."

"No, you misunderstand me. I am sorry that you had to make the decision alone."

With that, the anger that had temporarily died down flared again with new fire. "It's stupid." She stepped away from him to gesture wildly with her hands. "When did I suddenly become someone who can just make these decisions? It's always me. _Always_. Legion said that it should be me because I've fought them before, like that suddenly makes me a neutral party. Everyone assumes that I'll be righteous, that I'll be good, that I'll make the right move." Her hands balled into fists. "It's stupid." She growled out again.

"What did you decide?" Thane's voice was quiet, low. The hum that sounded just on the edge of her hearing was supposed to be soothing, she could tell, but her nerves were tuned too tightly to really benefit.

"I rewrote them." She said simply, staring at him for a moment before grinding the palms of her heels into her eyes. "Just like that. The entire free will of a people gone. Wiped out. Erased. Because of me."

He let out a deep rumble. "I know you did what you thought was best..."

"Yeah," she barked. "Best. That's _your_ weakness." She pointed a finger accusingly at him. "You always think I'll do the right thing. Your bias is _me._"

Thane was silent for a moment, giving Shepard time to regret her words. She came here to talk to Thane, not yell at him and make him feel awful. "Thane, I'm..."

"No." He said softly, expression inscrutable. "Do not apologize. It is true. I do have faith in you. I do not think it is a weakness, though. And I do not believe you think so either. Attachment to others is a strength, an asset. Not a fault."

It was Shepard's turn to be quiet as she mulled over his words. She was flattered by his belief in her—but it was also disconcerting. There seemed to be two opinions of her in the galaxy: one was that she was a saint, the other was that she was the personification of evil. Neither of them was accurate, and it seemed that Thane thought the former. "You're right." She said finally, twining the fingers of one hand loosely with his. "I don't think the fact that we care for each other is a weakness. I'm sorry I said that. But... what I did, regardless of whether it was right or wrong, it was selfish."

"Let me be the judge of that, siha." He tugged her over to his narrow bed, sitting her down before settling himself next to her. "Tell me why you did it."

Shepard folded her hands in her lap, keeping her eyes trained on them. "What it boiled down to was a choice between the importance of life and the importance of free choice. I know what I would choose for myself. It's the same reason we put down the indoctrinated—a life without a free mind is no life at all. But I chose to keep them alive. You might say that it was because I wanted to save them, because I wanted to preserve life, but that wasn't it at all."

She hesitated, suddenly feeling ashamed for telling Thane all of this. What if he hated her? What if he saw her for what she really was: flawed, damaged, undeserving. She thought of him withdrawing, closing himself off to her, and her heart clenched painfully when she imagined a life without him by her side. But then his hand covered hers, and she found herself saying the words anyway, fear and doubt coloring them. "It was tactical." She shut her eyes tightly. "It came down to numbers. If I rewrote the geth, we would weaken the Reaper's hold on the galaxy and perhaps stand a greater chance. I sacrificed their free will in order to save more organic life." She sighed deeply. "It sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn't it? I mean, what I did was logical, and strategically it was the right decision. But..." She paused a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Free choice, free will, that's supposed to trump everything. It used to drive Garrus nuts, you know, when I'd give everyone a chance to mend their ways. Even if it exposed me to unnecessary danger, I always felt that everyone deserved a chance to decide their own fate—even if that fate was to push me to kill them. I know what it's like to have choice taken away from you, to see your life being forced down a path and knowing you're powerless to stop it. I never wanted to be the reason anyone else had to go through that, and though the geth are my enemy, I never wanted to do that to them. But... I did anyway."

Her voice lowered to whisper. "Legion was wrong to place his trust in me. I think about how I might have chosen differently, but I know that I wouldn't. I know I would do the same thing a hundred times over if I had to."

"So you see?" Her voice became firmer as her thoughts turned to her own self-loathing. "I'm not someone you should have faith in. We're fighting against a force that willingly takes the minds of its enemies, and I am no better."

Thane withdrew his hand from her, and Shepard felt her insides wither. She had destroyed his trust in her, removed the blinders that made him believe she was a siha, an angel. Angels didn't rape others' minds. It was better this way though—better that he saw her for what she was now instead of later, when it would be harder to let go. At least it was over before it had really started.

She stood in a sudden movement, it was better to leave him alone to regret his feelings for her, but before she could stutter a goodbye, she was in his arms, his hands so hot against her lower back, mouth moving against her hair, "Don't go, siha, don't go."

Her eyes stung with relief, and she clung to him, trailing her fingers along the back of his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. She had been so convinced that he would reject her, so convinced of her own unworthiness, and yet he had done the opposite. Why he accepted her, why he held her instead of pushing her away, she didn't know. But it didn't matter; all that mattered was how his heart beat so fast against her chest, how she was sure her legs would give out if he didn't hold her up.

"You are _not_ the same as our enemies." Thane said, a rough, fierce note darkening his words. "Did you do this lightly? Did you do this because you wanted to cause them pain, or worse, because you did not care?" His grip on her tightened. "No. Never."

"But what I did was _wrong_."

"You are operating under the assumption that there was a right answer. It is not that simple, and you know it."

"What would you have done?" Thane hesitated, hands stopping their circles along her back. "Tell me."

"...I would have killed them."

She pulled back enough to stare into his eyes, trying to glean even the smallest thought that roiled behind them. "Why?"

"There are times when we must put aside our personal ethics in order to achieve something greater. This is what you did—you know that you personally disagree with your actions, and that causes you considerable pain, but you also know that you had no other choice. That is but one of the many reasons why I follow you—not just as my commander, but as my siha. You know when you must sacrifice, even if that sacrifice is your own sense of right and wrong." He paused. "I... I am not as selfless as you are." He avoided her gaze, pulling back from her further. "My own inadequacies must seem great to you."

The thought that he would be uncertain with her, that he could think that she would find fault with him made her ache. She laid her hand on his cheek, drawing him back to her with a watery smile. "You're ridiculous. I was afraid that you would hate me for what I did. You're not allowed to do the same."

He laughed low at her, the tension easing out of him as he pulled her closer. "I do not think you understand the depth of my affection for you. Did you really think that you would drive me away?"

She couldn't stop the silly grin from taking over her face. "Guess I'll have to try harder than that."

His eyes were full of dark promise, his voice making her center flutter in response. "Much, much harder."

She was suddenly acutely aware of how firmly his long, lithe body was pressed against hers, and felt her face flush as she looked up at him. For the first time, she felt that the skin-tight leather he wore was too much; she wanted to feel the roughness of his scales against her skin. She trailed her fingers down his cheek, brushing against the edges of his lips. Cloves and cedar, sweet and earthy, made her faint with desire, and all she could think about was discovering what he tasted like.

One of his hands came up to thread through the hair at the nape of her neck, the other sneaking calloused fingers under the hem of her shirt to brush against her smooth, cool skin, and she tilted her head back, his lips ghosting over hers.

He was so tentative, so uncertain, so afraid that she would pull away again, and it drove her crazy—she was about to remove all of his doubts, when her stomach suddenly growled loudly, and he jerked back, eyes wide.

"Dammit, Thane." Shepard breathed. She needed his lips on hers far more than she needed food and hated her body for betraying her at such a crucial moment. It seemed that now that Thane had removed her anxiety, her body had decided that food was perhaps all right after all.

But he laughed, apparently far too amused to let the moment continue. "Your stomach sounds angry with me."

She pursed her lips. "Yeah, it's hilarious. Let's ignore it."

His eyes were shining with amusement. "But you are hungry, siha."

She cradled her hands on either side of his face. "I won't die in the next five minutes."

"I am in no rush." He leaned down to press his forehead against hers, just as her stomach let out another pained snarl, eliciting another soft chuckle from him. "And if you keep making those noises, I will not be able to stop laughing."

"I fail to see why it's so damn funny." She pouted.

"I do not think I could explain the finer points of what such a low growl sounds like to a drell. Suffice it to say that it _is_ hilarious." He pulled back from her, linking their hands between them. "Come with me to the mess hall. I will prepare you a meal."

She knew when it was useless to pursue a matter, so she let it drop. She would just retire to her cabin after her dinner and dream of drell kisses. Perhaps pout _just_ a little. It seemed like circumstances in her life were determined to prevent her from having even the smallest bit of satisfaction. "Fine. No purple things, though."

"Not at all." He began leading her out, keeping one of her hands firmly in his.

"I thought you couldn't cook." She squeezed his hand.

He smiled at her. "I said I could not cook for myself. But you like salads. I know what you put on them. I can recreate it. It does not take much culinary expertise to put some chopped vegetables in a bowl. I can even cut a piece of bread for you."

"You're too kind." His self-satisfied smirk let her know that he was well aware of that. "But this... we..."

"Oh, siha." They stopped just outside of his door, and his voice lowered to a smoldering whisper. "Do not think for a moment that you are safe from my pursuit. I intend to finish what we started."

She found it hard to swallow, and even though she wanted to say something at least vaguely intelligent in response, the most she could manage was a breathy "Oh... okay."

He chatted amiably at her once they were in the mess, but her mind was consumed by the thought of him, and she could offer nothing more than murmured monosyllabic responses. His dark smirk let her know that he knew _exactly_ why.

* * *

**A/N:** Oh gosh, only one more after this! D: I hope you're as excited/nervous/sad about that as I am! As always, my delightful beta deserves accolades for her fine work on this chapter. I don't know how I wrote this before her!


	18. I Catch the Language of My Former Heart

Life had a way of never quite working out the way Shepard planned. She had finished recruiting her team, had ensured that they had all checked their baggage at the door, and had planned on making a slick and impressive jump through the Omega-4 relay into Collector space, surprising the holy hell out of them and generally kicking everyone's ass.

Then Joker messaged her.

She knew even before the pilot told her what happened that something was horribly wrong—his voice never held that acrid tone of fear and self-loathing—but she never imagined that her crew, her _entire_ crew had been kidnapped by the enemy.

The Illusive Man was right—it did seem personal. But she did not share his optimism regarding the Collectors' hidden fear of her; it seemed brazen, a brash insult, a wicked taunt. And now, instead of a calculated entrance that left little to no room for error, she was left with no choice but to sally forth with a barely cobbled together plan, based on conjecture and spur of the moment intelligence that they couldn't confirm. It wasn't exactly how she wanted to approach a suicide mission.

Things had moved quickly—too quickly for her to stop and take a moment to catch her breath—and before she knew it, they were on their way to the relay, and she had barely two hours before she would be charging into the den of the beast. An unnatural silence permeated the vessel, and not just because it was nearly a ghost ship. Her squad padded through the halls like they were already dead, moving in near silence, each deep in thought—whether their minds were consumed by prayers to their gods or memories of loved ones, she didn't know. And, before long, the halls were empty, everyone retiring to their respective quarters to spend their last free hours however they wished.

Shepard thought that perhaps she should address them somehow, but she felt the superfluity of it—they were all battle hardened, all used to impossible odds. Anything said by her, now, would be pale and unnecessary. There were times that a speech like Kirrahe's was needed, and there were times, like now, that needed only silent, individual introspection.

Thus, she found herself alone in her room on the eve of battle—even Thane had left her to be by himself. She let out a long sigh, regretting her indecision regarding the drell—everything had happened so quickly that Thane had not been able to follow through on his promise to continue what they had started. If she hadn't delayed things for so long, then they might have been able to fulfill all of those suppressed desires. Perhaps it was for the best, though. Shepard didn't need any more distractions to carry with her through the relay.

She sat at her desk, flicking idly through unanswered email. She thought that perhaps she should respond to some of them, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Instead, she was content to merely read through them, tiny reminders that there were people who had connected with her, even in some small way. Even if she and her crew all died, maybe someone would remember her.

And, as if her thoughts weren't dark enough, she inevitably lighted upon Kaidan's email.

He hadn't responded to her. She wondered if he knew what she was about to do. It was silly—of course he didn't. How could he? She amused herself with the thought that if he did, surely he would have contacted her somehow, if only to say good luck or be safe, or some other idiotic platitude that people gave when they didn't know what else to do.

Shepard flicked her gaze over to stare at his picture—still smiling at her from the corner of her desk. She felt strange about the entire situation; she wanted to move forward with Thane, but there was a picture of another man on her desk. It was awkward. She leaned forward, elbows on her desk, hands lightly clasped together, and regarded the man who she had thought she might spend the rest of her life with—or at least a good chunk of it. Now, it seemed that their night before Ilos was the only real thing they had together. Shepard frowned. He should be with her.

It wasn't that she wanted him to change. It wasn't that she wanted him to be happy about or even accept that she was with Cerberus. But she did want him to care enough about her to at least support her when she faced a likely death. Shepard didn't deserve to be alone—she had already died once, alone and terrified, and she didn't particularly wish to repeat the experience.

She felt her mouth harden into a thin line, and with one swift movement, she flipped the holo face down on her desk. She deserved his attention. Anyone who truly cared for her would not abandon her like he did. How long was she supposed to wait for him to come to terms with her decisions? How long was she supposed to make excuses for his absence? It was ridiculous. She would wait no longer.

But, turning the picture face down did not change the fact that she was still alone in her cabin. For one indulgent moment, she allowed self-pity to wash over her.

Even Thane had left her.

She shook her head, disgusted at her own thoughts. How must _he _be feeling? Was he trying to contact Kolyat? Was he consumed with regret, reliving memories of his destroyed family? He could be wrapped up in his own private hell at this very moment—at least she went into battle carrying few regrets; she had long ago come to terms with the fact that she couldn't have saved her family or her squad members on Akuze. But she knew that Thane still blamed himself for what had happened to his wife and son.

Should she leave him to it? Did he really want to be alone, or was he wishing—just like she was with him—that she would seek him out? It was a painful thing, at times, to be locked inside one's own head, confused and blinded to the wishes and desires of those around you. She could leave him to his thoughts, let him come to her if that's what he really wished, or she could just...

She pushed herself away from the table, standing up and turning toward the door. Damn her insecurities. Shepard had learned long ago to never enter a battle with 'what ifs' pinging about in her head if she could help it, and on the eve of a suicide mission, she certainly wasn't going to give in to her neuroses. If she wanted to see Thane, then—dammit—she would see him.

But before she could even take a step toward her door, it opened, and the very man on her thoughts came striding in, as purposeful and desperate as she herself was only a few days ago when she came to see him regarding her decision with the geth. She knew immediately that something weighed heavily on his mind—his eyes flicked to her before casting themselves to the ground. He never fled her gaze unless something was wrong.

"Thane..." She intended to meet him halfway, but he strode past her to pace near her bed, leaving her to trail in his wake.

She had felt his tension before, but this was something different. "Siha, I..." His eye ridges knitted together, and he let out a soft, high trill that colored the air with despair before he continued. "I have known I will die for many years." It seemed that just avoiding her eyes was no longer enough, and he turned away from her; she knew without looking that his hands were twisting together, at times flashing the inside of a bare wrist—she could hear the scales rub against each other.

Now that _he_ had escaped her eyes—she never thought that _her_ gaze might be just as encroaching as his was—the words seemed to tumble out of him. "I have tried to leave the galaxy better than I found it. You've helped me achieve more than I thought possible. We've righted many wrongs. I've spoken to my son. I should be at peace on the eve of battle."

Unspoken was the thought that it was because of _her,_ that peace evaded him. Part of her was thrilled at the thought that he no longer felt that there was nothing else for him to live for—Kolyat deserved more than a father who made a brief appearance and then slipped quietly into death, and she... she wanted to show him that there was more to life than the finality of its end. He knew he was dying—but weren't they all? In their line of work, any mission could mean death—a simple mercenary raid could end with her gasping her last on a dirty, cold warehouse floor, left forever on some foreign, hostile moon. Precisely because life could end tomorrow, they had to act as if they would live forever; they had to prevent death from casting a pall on life.

His preoccupation with his fate troubled her—his words carried a sense of preparation, as if he had turned them over and over in his head, examining them from every facet before giving them to her. She pulled him to face her, twining a hand with his. He had that far away look in his eyes that he got when he was reliving memories, but they were not pleasant—his brows were furrowed, his mouth set with anguish. He _was_ trapped in his own private hell, and she had to pull him out. She wouldn't let him torture himself like this. "Stop. Don't give me a speech. You don't have to be alone in this."

He finally met her eyes, murmuring, "I'm... ashamed." Such vulnerability in that one small statement.

Her heart ached for him; she felt the loneliness and isolation in his confession, and tears pricked her eyes. "Why, Thane?" She whispered. "What is there to be ashamed of?" She laid her hand against his cheek, hoping to draw him closer to her, but he flinched away as if her touch burned him, pushing her hand aside.

Thane turned away from her to lean against the small table along her wall. His back, usually a long, straight line, was hunched, shoulders tense, and a fine shudder went through him—she wanted to wrap her arms around him, draw his sorrow from his form and take it into herself. Shepard took one step toward him when he let out a sudden snarl, slamming the desk with one fist, making her stop in her tracks, surprised. "I have worked so hard. Meditated and prayed and done good deeds. Atoned for the evils I've done. Prepared." His voice was rougher than usual, and Shepard realized with a shock that he spoke through tears.

"I consider my body's death, and a chill settles in my gut." She would not let him go through this alone—she could not. She wrapped her hand over his trembling fist, refusing to allow him to push her away again. "I am afraid," his voice came to her small and quiet and heavy with self-loathing, "...and it shames me."

"Thane..." He was not afraid of death—he was afraid of loss. For the first time in a long time, they both had something to lose. She had been so consumed with her own fractured self that she didn't see how their scars mirrored each other. Both of them were broken, but perhaps they were wrong in thinking that it was a burden that they had to carry alone—she realized guiltily that while she had poured herself out to him, she had rarely given him time to do the same. It was a burden that they had to be willing to share between them, and Shepard knew now, more than ever, that this was what she wanted. Thane made her happy. She wanted to make him happy. They would never be 'normal'—not like she and Kaidan would have been—but she didn't care. She was creating her own definition of normal.

She pulled him toward her, laying her hand against his cheek once more, but this time Thane didn't stop her. He gave her a fearful look, as if he was preparing himself for her rejection—she wondered what sort of people he had in his life that would punish him for revealing his vulnerability, and she felt a sharp sting of sorrow when she thought about how he expected the same from her.

"You're not alone in this fear, you know. I... I'm afraid too. But..." She hesitated, searching for the right words. "The reason I'm afraid isn't because I might die. It's because I have you, because now that you're with me I have so much to live for, so much I want..." She shook her head. "Death has no place here, not with us. Not now."

His eyelids flicked, expression softening at her words. She ran her thumb through the wet track of tears glistening on his cheek. There were so many more things she wanted to say, more words of comfort running through her head, but what finally came out was simple: "Be alive with me tonight."

His eyes widened; perhaps he was shocked, confused, relieved… she didn't know. His mouth parted to say something, but all she could hear was the low rumble that vibrated his chest, all she could feel was his warm breath on her skin, and then her lips were on his.

Her first thought was how soft and warm they were, so pliant against her mouth, even as Thane stiffened against her for a moment— obviously shocked— but as always, he recovered quickly. He leaned into the kiss with a ferocity that surprised _her_, tangling one hand in her hair before trailing it down her neck, while letting the other hand ghost down past the small of her back to pull her flush against him.

She slid her tongue along his lips, and he opened his mouth to her, filling her senses with the intoxicating taste of cinnamon and ginger, sweet and spicy and—_God_, the man could kiss. A white-hot line of electricity sparked from her lips to between her legs; it was intense, overwhelming. His leather left so little to the imagination—she could already feel him through it—and the knowledge that he was just as consumed with desire as she was forced a whimper out of her throat.

At the small sound, Thane—to her dismay—pulled back, staring at her with eyes that were far too large and dark. "I've... Siha, I've... you..." He fumbled with his words, as if worried that he might have displeased her.

Shepard smiled, caressing those ruby folds at his neck. "Oh, believe me, you _want_ me to make those noises." He let out a low moan of his own at her touch—her tongue flicked out to wet her lips at the sound—and he shuddered, eyes fluttering closed.

She kissed him lightly again, suddenly shy, wondering what to do next. She desperately wished she had done more than blush and quickly close the email that Mordin had sent—what if she couldn't please him, what if it was all awkwardness and confusion...?

But then his fingers lightly trailed up and down her throat, and suddenly she didn't have to wonder what to do next because his lips followed them.

Shepard was relieved that one strong arm was wrapped around her waist, because his slow, delicate kisses and nibbles along the column of her neck made her weak in the knees. He drew out small gasps and mewls, and he answered her cries by humming along her throat, making her skin tingle where he touched her. She wanted, _needed_, to feel more of him, and she tugged ineffectually at the buckles on his jacket. "Mmm, Thane... off." Apparently she was as eloquent as he was.

She felt him smile against her skin, and he pulled back, one hand beginning to unfasten his jacket and vest. "Is this what you want, siha?"

At her nod, he released her to shrug out of his leathers, and she stumbled back to sit on her bed—she had seen him without his jacket only once before, but their sparring session seemed like a lifetime ago. She had thought him beautiful then, but she had never entertained the thought of tracing each one of those dark stripes with her tongue, feeling him writhe underneath her.

He stood uncertainly before her, one hand coming up to grip his elbow. "I... erm." His frill turned a deep red.

A man that built should never be uneasy with himself. Shepard felt her small smile turn almost predatory, and a tiny part of her wanted to be embarrassed by that. She held out her hand to him, pulling him toward her. Words were unnecessary when she nuzzled her cheek against the flat planes of his stomach, kissing along one stripe to where it disappeared into his pants. She feathered her fingers over his lower back, and he let out a sharp hiss, slender hips jerking toward her.

He tangled his fingers in her hair, cradling her cheek with his other hand. "Ah, you have me at a disadvantage." His voice was rough, dark, and he tugged at her sleeve. "...Off?"

She let out a giggle—she _never_ giggled—and grasped the hem of her shirt with both hands, pulling it over her head. Before she could lose her nerve, she unhooked her bra as well, tossing both of them aside. And then... there she was. Pink and white and decidedly not scaly. She folded her hands in her lap at first, determined to look anywhere but Thane's face, and then that wasn't enough, and she crossed her arms firmly over her chest. She knew _one_ thing about drell females, and that one thing was that they didn't have breasts. She had never realized until that moment how incredibly _weird_ breasts were.

She felt Thane kneel before her, and he gently tugged at her arms until they loosened. She stared the floor, and he bent down, craning his head at an odd angle so he could look into her eyes, making her smile despite herself. "I enjoy this soft pink color you turn when you are embarrassed, but you need not do so now." He captured her lips with his, murmuring into her mouth, "You are beautiful to me."

She let herself be pushed down onto the bed, and Thane hovered above her, teasing her neck again with his teeth and tongue before he traveled down and did the same to her breasts. His touch was tentative at first, and when she quivered under him, he pulled away, fixing her with a concerned gaze. "Is this... do you like...?"

Shepard gave him a grin that she knew was a little goofy—she couldn't help thinking about him studying the videos Mordin sent oh so carefully; it was the only way he'd have known what to do with her strange anatomy. "Don't you dare stop." His smile was delightfully wicked as he bent down with renewed confidence, proving once again that he was a _very_ quick learner.

She arched underneath him, his name soft on her lips, and he rolled his eyes up to look at her. More than anything in the world she wanted his memory in order to forever capture that single look on his face, for she knew in that moment that he didn't just care for her...

...He _loved_ her.

A sobbing gasp ripped its way out of her throat, and she pulled him up to kiss him, tongue slipping between his lips as she tried her hardest to drink him in, sliding hot fingers along the dark folds at his neck.

She whispered his name again and again, hooking her legs around his waist and grinding herself into him; he snapped his hips back, growling into her mouth. They were wearing too many clothes—both of them seemed to realize this at once—and with a few frantic movements, and a couple of hushed laughs, there was nothing between them anymore. Gone was the embarrassment, gone was the hesitation, and when he buried himself inside of her, nothing had ever been so perfect.

* * *

He didn't sweat like she did. She looked down at the two of them—legs tangled together with the bed sheet wound between them, her arm flung haphazardly across his chest, his hand stroking absentmindedly along her neck. She felt the light sheen of sweat cooling on her skin, but he was warm, dry, his even breathing stirring her hair ever so slightly. He looked so strange next to her—emerald skin striking against her own, black stripes winding their way along his body. His throat thrummed, expanding and contracting as he crooned some low song to her.

He was beautiful.

Her skin ached where he had rubbed against her, an angry red showing up against her pale flesh, but she loved it—it was his mark on her, and some part of her wished it could be there forever. So many thoughts tumbled in her head—she wanted to show him so many things. She could take him to Mindoir, show him what it felt like to run his hands along the feathery tops of the ripened wheat, show him all of her secret places that she had discovered as a child—the hidden waterfalls, sunken grottoes. They could go to a desert—it didn't matter where—and spend hours soaking up the sun, breathing in the dry, hot air. She wanted him to take her to Kahje, Rakhana; she could see the watery world that had come to mean so much to him and the arid world that held all of his old gods. She wanted them to read books together, listen to music together, share everything about each others' culture and then create their own strange hybrid of the two that was uniquely theirs.

She let out a long, contented sigh, and Thane hugged her closer to him, her name a breathy whisper on his lips. The past was a heavy thing—they each dragged it behind them, an impossible weight to carry. She knew they didn't have much time. It didn't matter. They couldn't dwell on it, couldn't let it color their decisions, their dreams and desires. Her past—their past—would not control their present, nor would tomorrow's imagined sorrow. Whatever loss may happen in the future, she had him in her arms _now_, and that was more than enough recompense.

* * *

**A/N:** And that, my friends, is the end. I hope you enjoyed it! Stay tuned for a new story-this time parked in Thane's little head. We'll be exploring their romance from the drell's point of view; with luck you'll enjoy it just as much as this one.

So, thanks to all of you for reading, and the BIGGEST THANKS OF ALL to my wonderful beta-she is just such a delight. :D


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